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MEMOIR 



II A N N A H MORE; 



WITH BRIEF NOTICES OF HER WORKS, CON- 
TEMPORARIES, ETC. 



By S: G. ARNOLD. 



Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours, 
And ask them wtiat report they bore to heaven. 

TOUNO. 



H^txo llork: 

PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER, 

SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION, 200 MULBKRKY-8TRKET. 



c 






" Entered accordiifg to Act of Congress, in the year 
1839, by T. Mason and G. Lane, in the Clerk's Office 
of the District Court of the Southern District of New 
York." 



G»ff from 

y^rs, Etta F. Winter 
Sept; 20 1932 



TO MRS. CATHARINE GARRETTSON, 

OF RHINEBECK, N. Y. 

Respected Madam : — The wisest of men 
has enjoined it upon us to remember the obli- 
gations of friendship. " Thine own friend," 
says Solomon, " and thy father's friend forsake 
not," It would be well for the author of this 
small volume if his duty and his inclination 
were always as ready to coalesce, as in this 
instance. When he recollects the kindness 
which it was your pleasure, and that of your 
excellent husband, to extend to his aged parents 
— when he calls to mind the sweet hours which 
they were wont to spend with you in holy con- 
templation of that world upon whose glories 
they have at length entered — he would not 
suppress the emotions of gratitude which swell 
his heart, and cannot but seize this opportu- 
nity to make them known. There are, how- 
ever, other reasons why this little book should 
be inscribed to you. Your long life has been 
devoted to the same benevolent objects that oc- 
cupied the chief attention of Miss More : like 



4 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

her, you have survived nearly all the compa 
nions of your early years ; and, I may add, are 
waiting, with humble reliance on the Saviour of 
mankind, that rest which remains only for the 
people of God. I therefore take the liberty to 
dedicate to you this brief memoir, knowing well 
that it will not be the less acceptable to the 
young, for whose benefit it has been chiefly de- 
signed, for having the sanction of your name. 

I am, with great respect. 

Your faithful and obedient servant, 

Samuel G. Arnold 

Brooklyn, May, 1839. 



PREFACE 

TO 

MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE 



The author, in givingithis little work to the 
public, has only to say that it is designed chiefly 
for the young, and has been written with an 
especial reference to the readers of Sabbath 
school libraries. In presenting it to. the pub- 
lic, therefore, he hardly aspires to. the dignity 
of authorship. His object has been merely 
to imbody, in a concise form, such a sketch 
of Miss More's life as might be safely put into 
the hands of the young reader, without any re- 
gard to particular tenets of religion. If he has 
succeeded in doing this, he has accomplished 
all that was intended. 



MEMOIR 

OF 

HANNAH MORE. 

CHAPTER I. 

Opening remarks — Birth — Parentage — Education — Re 
moval to Bristol — Early literary taste — Matrimonial engage 
ment with Mr. Turner. 

Among barbarous nations, where courage and 
strength are considered as the most prominent 
virtues, the condition of woman is always de- 
graded : but in proportion as light and know- 
ledge extend — as civilization and Christianity- 
advance — as the empire of mind rises above 
mere physical excellence ; in the same propor- 
tion does she emerge from obscurity and degra- 
dation, and take her place in that society which 
it is so eminently her province to polish, im- 
prove, and beautify. 

It becomes us, then, as members of civil 
society, to cherish those illustrious examples of 
female excellence and high intellectual endow- 
ments which have so much contributed to 
ennoble the female character, while, at the 
same time, they have left their impress on the 
age. Among these none are more deserving of 
our attention than that gifted child of genius 



y MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

and of song, the celebrated Hannah More, who, 
though comparatively obscure in her origin, has 
left behind her a name which may justly be 
quoted as an ornament to her sex, to the church, 
and to the world. 

Hannah More was born at Stapleton, in the 
county of Gloucester, England, in 1745, and 
\^as one of five daughters, being the fourth in 
the order of time. Her father, Mr. Jacob 
More, was respectably descended, and received 
a liberal education with the view of fitting him 
for a minister in the Church of England : but 
by the unfortunate termination of a lawsuit in 
which he was engaged, he was so much re- 
duced in his circumstances, that he abandoned 
his first intention, and, determining to devote 
himself to the business of teaching, became the 
master of a foundation-school near Stapleton. 
He married the daughter of a respectable farmer 
in the neighbourhood, who to a sound and 
vigorous mind united the advantages of a good 
education, and under whose forming hand her 
daughters imbibed those principles which after- 
ward rendered them so conspicuous for their 
usefulness and virtue. Such being the circum- 
stances of Mr. More, it was his design to edu- 
cate his daughters accordingly, and knowing 
that they could comfortably provide for them- 
selves by conducting a respectable boarding- 
school, the course of their studies was directed 
only to this end. Such, however, were his 
views of the required qualifications, that a know- 
ledge of the mathematics, or the Greek and 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. [) 

Roman classics, did not enter into the course 
which he adopted, notwithstanding his own 
intimate acquaintance with these branches. 

It was for this reason that Hannah, who had 
from her infancy manifested a wonderful facility 
in th%acquirement of all kinds of learning, and 
whose memory was so very retentive that she 
had obtained a considerable knowledge of the 
French merely by hearing her sisters recite 
their lessons, found much difficulty in persuad- 
ing her father to become her tutor in the study 
of the Latin. She, however, finally succeeded, 
and afterward took great delight in cultivating 
an acquaintance with the Latin classics. 

But the education of Mr. More's family was 
not merely literary. It had been the earnest 
desire of both parents to inculcate on the minds 
of their daughters such a reverence for religion, 
and such a deep and abiding love of virtue, as 
would secure to them both the favour of God 
and the respect of mankind. These endeavours 
were not in vain, and their good effects were 
abundantly evident in the subsequent lives of 
these amiable sisters. When the eldest sister 
was twenty years of age, a boarding-school was 
opened at Bristol under her immediate superin- 
tendence, which was conducted with that propri- 
ety and discretion which secured to it a measure 
of success beyond the brightest anticipations. 

This was in 1757. Hannah was then in her 
twelfth year, and removed to Bristol with her 
sister, and under her care enjoyed much greater 
facilities for acquiring information, which she 



10 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

seized and improved with avidity. Two years 
after, the elder Mr. Sheridan delivered an able 
and interesting course of lectures, at Bristol, on 
eloquence, which was attended by the establish- 
ment of Miss More, and with which Hannah 
was so delighted that she made it the sjjjaject 
of some poetic lines which found their way to 
the lecturer, and induced him to seek hei 
acquaintance. 

It may be proper in this place to observe that 
Hannah had early manifested a taste for poetry, 
which she seems to have cultivated almost 
from her cradle. Every scrap of paper which 
she could lay hands on was put under contribu- 
tion for recording her poetic effusions, and a 
great portion of her leisure time, even from her 
childhood, was occupied in writing sonnets, and 
prose essays, which are represented as having 
possessed much merit. 

Such a mind could not long remain unnoticed or 
unappreciated. Accordingly we find her, while 
yet a mere girl, attracting the attention of the 
learned and the great. A physician of eminence, 
who attended her through one of her alarming 
attacks of illness, to which she was occasionally 
subject during her whole life, in one of his calls 
during her convalescence, was so captivated 
with her conversation that he entirely forgot 
the object of his visit. A Mr. Peach, who had 
been a particular friend of Hume, the celebrated 
historian, and who possessed a highly cultivated 
mind, was among her most intimate acquaint- 
ance. In 1760, when she was fifteen years of 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. il 

age, she was first introduced to Ferguson, the 
astronomer, and a friendship was formed which 
lasted through life. Soon after this she became 
acquainted with the accomphshed Dr. Lang- 
home,* and for many years maintained with him 
an interesting correspondence. She was also 
about this time on terms of intimacy with Dean 
Tucker and Dr. Ford, besides many other indi- 
viduals of eminence. 

In 1762, when she was in her seventeenth 
year, she first appeared as an author. Observ- 
ing that a custom was prevailing among her 
juvenile acquaintance, of committing to memory 
parts of plays not always sound in principle or 
pure in morals, she wrote her " Search after 
Happiness," a pastoral drama, with the hope of 
giving to this custom a safer direction. The 
attempt succeeded remarkably, and in a few 
months the work passed through three editions. 

* Langhome was aft accomplished scholar and gentleman, 
and the correspondence between him and Miss More is 
marked by great sprightliness and wit. 

In one of the summer vacations, Miss More was walking 
with him on the sea-shore at Uphill, some miles from Bristol, 
when he wrote with his cane in the sand as follows : — 
" Along the shore 

Walk'd Hannah More : 
Waves, let the record last. 
Sooner shall ye. 
Proud earth and sea, 
Than what she writes, be pass'd. 
Miss More smiled at the compliment, and with her usual 
readiness wrote underneath with her riding-whip : — 
" Some firmer basis, polished Langhome, choose, 
To write the dictates ->( thy charming muse ; 
Her strains in solid characters rehearse. 
And be thy tablet lasting as thy verse. 



12 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

In her twentieth year she formed an intimacy 
with the excellent Dr. Stonehouse (afterward 
Sir James Stonehouse) who was the founder of 
the Northampton Infirmary, and had been for 
twenty years its physician. He had now, how- 
ever, relinquished his profession, and taken 
orders in the Church of England. Miss More 
entertained for him the highest regard, and 
during his life seems to have trusted herself 
much to his judgment and counsel. No friend 
could have been better chosen. Besides his 
high reputation as a scholar, Dr. Stonehouse 
was a man of deep piety, cool discretion, an 
even and sober temper, and a heart so tender as 
to make his friendship almost paternal. Miss 
More was particularly fortunate in her friends, 
but in none more than in Dr. Stonehouse. She 
lived to write both his own epitaph and that of 
his lady. 

Although we know little of Miss More's 
acquaintance with the other sex, yet it would 
be too much to suppose that a young female of 
her accomplishments, both of mind and person, 
should not have been the theme of admiration, 
and the subject of attention. When she was in 
her twenty-first year she had an offer of mar- 
riage, which, though apparently not very well 
suited to her taste and pursuits, she thought 
proper to accept, though the marriage was 
never consummated. The circumstances of 
this connection are as follows : — 

A gentleman of fortune residing on an estate 
near Bristol, by the name of Turner, had two 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 13 

nieces at the establishment of the Misses More, 
who frequently spent their holydays at Belmont 
House with their uncle, who had given them 
permission to invite any young ladies they 
might wish as companions. 

Availing themselves of this permission, they 
invited the two younger sisters of the Misses 
More, Hannah and Patty, to accompany them 
on a visit to Belmont House, and Mr. Turner 
was so much pleased with the appearance of 
Hannah, and so much delighted with her con- 
versation, that he soon after offered her his 
hand, which, on the part of Miss More, was 
accepted. 

The wedding-day was fixed, but when the 
time approached, Mr. Turner deferred it. An- 
other day was appointed, but on the eve of its 
arrival Mr. Turner again put it off. The elder 
sisters now interfered, regarding his conduct 
as dishonourable. Mr. Turner, however, de- 
clared that his attachment was unchanged, and 
desired to fix another day. Hannah requested 
time to consider the matter, and, having con- 
sulted her friend Dr. Stonehouse, at his advice 
she calmly, but firmly, refused the alliance. 

The parties separated in friendship, and Mr. 
Tiurner offered to settle an annuity- on Miss 
More for life, which, however, she declined to 
accept. Subsequently the annuity was settled 
through her friend. Dr. Stonehouse, without her 
knowledge, and at his death Mr. Turner left 
her by will one thousand poimds, about four 
thousand five hundred dollars. 



14 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

There can be little doubt that Miss More 
took the wisest course in the settlement of this 
affair. Mr. Turner was more than twenty- 
years her senior, and besides fickleness and 
irresolution, which he manifested in postponing 
from time to time the celebration of the nuptials, 
he is represented as having a temper little 
suited to the promotion of domestic happiness. 
That his intentions were entirely honourable 
there can be no doubt ; but there is still little 
excuse for the manner in which he trifled with 
the delicate feelings of an amiable friend. 

For a lady in the situation of Miss More the 
match was eligible, and had she possessed 
another cast of mind, might have presented 
powerful attractions. Mr. Turner was a gen^ 
tleman of great wealth and respectable literary 
attainments : his estate was tastefully laid out 
and delightfully situated : his house elegantly 
furnished and surrounded with all the attrac- 
tions which money could procure. 

How far such considerations as these may have 
influenced the decision of Miss More in accept- 
ing Mr. Turner's offer, we have no other means 
of knowing than what we glean from the gene- 
ral character of her mind : but that it required 
a struggle to yield up all these pleasurable anti- 
cipations in connection with him who had won 
her esteem, there can be no doubt. The sur- 
render was, however, made with the same firm- 
ness which marked the acts of her whole life, 
and was coupled with a resolution never more 
to form a similar engagement, a resolution to 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 15 

which she most faithfully adhered. Her hand 
was subsequently solicited by another person 
worthy of her regard ; but in conformity with 
her resolve, she at once refused. The refusal, 
however, resulted in no breach between the 
parties, but ended in a respectful friendship, 
which continued through life. 



CHAPTER II. 

Remarks — Studies — Love of the drama — "Visit to London 
— Introduction to Garrick and Johnson — Fashionable so- 
ciety — Publication of "Sir Eldred of the Bower" — Atten- 
tions of the great. 

Having attended Miss More to the threshold 
of that society which she was so admirably fit- 
ted to adorn and beautify, we are now to intro- 
duce her to the young reader from the midst of 
those gay scenes of wit and fashion which have 
so often proved the grave of virtue, and which 
were to try the strength of her character, and put 
her principles to the severest test of experience. 

There is a charm in the allurements of 
fashion against which the uninitiated are sel- 
dom proof. In these circumstances, next to 
the direct influences of religion, a moral and 
religious education is the surest safeguard ; and 
this, fortunately for her and for the world. Miss 
More possessed. One of our poets has well 
observed, 

"Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, 
That to be hated needs but to be seen," 



16 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

but in the alluring circles of fashion, vice is so 
disguised by the flowers and gems which genius 
and wit have showered around it, that we re- 
quire a vision enlightened by the word of God 
to divest it of its guilty trappings and lay it open 
to the view in all its naked deformities. Miss 
More, though at this time not under the direct 
influences of religion, seems to have been so 
guided by the principles which she had imbibed 
under the instructions of her pious parents, as 
to see some of the false covering in which the 
vices of fashionable life were enshrouded, and 
thereby to pass through the ordeal with less 
injury than has generally attended similar trials. 

The affair with Mr. Turner being finally ter- 
minated, Miss More resumed her literary labours 
with new zeal. She cultivated with great assi- 
duity a knowledge of the Italian, Spanish, and 
Latin languages, exercising her genius and 
polishing her style in making translations, which 
she executed with great facility and with an 
ease and spirit which were often the subject of 
Just commendation. 

She seems to have early imbibed a love for 
the drama, and the transcendant genius of 
Shakspeare always excited her warmest admira- 
tion : as she became conversant with fashion- 
able life, her curiosity was excited, by the fame 
of Garrick, to attend the theatre* and witness 
his extraordinary powers, as an actor, in repre- 

* The theatre at this time, under the management of Mr. 
Garrick, was a very different affair to what it soon became 
after his death and continues to be, which perhaps may form 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 17 

senting the prominent characters of this great 
poet. Accordingly, in 1773 she visited London, 
where she was introduced to many persons of 
distinction, and where she appears to have 
spent some time, mingling with the circles of 
fashion and gayety. 

She returned to Bristol to assist in the ma- 
nagement of her sisters' flourishing school, in 
which she now took an active part, and to con- 
tinue her literary labours : but she soon made 
another visit to London, accompanied by two of 
her sisters. At this second visit she had the 
gratification of being introduced to Garrick and 
Johnson, two persons whom she regarded al- 
most with veneration. 

Garrick and Johnson were intimate friends, 
and so pleased was the former with the wit and 
sprightliness of his new acquaintance, that he 
soon brought about a meeting between her and 
the doctor, which was mutually pleasing. Dr. 
Johnson was doubtless the greatest literary man 
of the age in which he lived, and in the circles 
which he frequented in London, was sometimes 
as brilliant as the meteor which for a moment 
excites our wonder, and then passes away: 
while at other times he was moody, silent, and 
abstracted. 

The interview took place at the house of Sir 
Joshua Reynolds, with whose family Miss More 
had become quite intimate, and Sir Joshua had 

some faint excuse for her attendance ; but whatever it has 
been, or might be, it is now most unquestionably "the vesti- 
bule of hell," and the direct road to everlasting ruin. — Ed. 
2 



18 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE, 

prepared her for the possibility of his being in 
one of his moods of sadness and silence. It, 
however, proved otherwise. The doctor met 
her with the* greatest warmth, accosting her 
with a verse from a morning hymn which she 
had written at the request of Sir James Stone- 
house. In the same pleasant humour he con- 
tinued during the whole evening, and they 
parted mutually gratified and mutually edified. 

During this visit she was also introduced to 
Barrett and Burke, and several other characters 
of distinguished eminence. She was thus 
brought into constant intercourse with persons 
of the highest order of intellect, by which her 
thirst after knowledge was increased, and her 
taste and capabilities improved. No society 
could have been more congenial to her feelings, 
or better calculated to enlarge and strengthen 
her mind. 

After remaining about six weeks in towTi, 
she returned to Bristol to pursue her unam- 
bitious career in her sisters' school, and does 
not appear to have visited London again until 
1775. x\t this visit she spent most of her time 
at Hampton, and at the house of Sir Joshua 
Reynolds, where she frequently enjoyed the 
company of Garrick, Johnson, and many other 
literary characters, among whom were the cele- 
bratef^ Mrs. Montague, Mrs. Carter, and Mrs. 
Bobcawen. 

She was now fairly introduced to the first 
literary circles in the metropolis, and was every- 
where received with cordiality and esteem. 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 19 

Though not decidedly pious, yet the habits of 
virtue in which she had been trained, the im- 
portance which she attached to external reli- 
gious worship, the regard which she had for 
the word of God, and the correct principles 
which she had early imbibed from her pious 
parents, saved her, through the divine blessing, 
from being dazzled and ensnared by the fascinat- 
ing scenes in which she mingled. Her con- 
science seems still to have proved a faithful 
monitor, and prevented her from indulging in 
many of the excesses of fashionable life. On 
one occasion having been induced to attend the 
opera, a theatrical representation in which the 
different parts are rehearsed in music, she was 
thoroughly disgusted, and on coming out ex- 
claimed, 

" Bear me, O God, O quickly bear me hence, 
To wholesome solitude, the muse of sense," 

and in a letter to a friend she declared it to be 
the last opera which she should ever attend ; 
a promise which she faithfully kept. 

In this time of need her ever watchful friend 
Sir James Stonehouse took every occasion to 
guard her against imbibing the spirit and vices 
of the fashionable society in which she was 
mingling. Learning that she had attended 
some Sunday parties, he wrote to her an affec- 
tionate letter, in which he pointed out in kind 
terms the error which she had committed, and 
also dropped her a seasonable word of advice, 
which seems to have produced its desired effect. 
Writing to me of her sisters soon after, she 



20 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

says : — " Thank my deai Dr. S for his 

kind, seasonable admonitions on my last Sun- 
day's engagement. Conscience had done its 
office before ; nay, was busy at the time ; and if 
it did not dash the cup of pleasure to the ground, 
infused at least a tincture of wormwood into it. 
I did think of the alarming call, * What dost 
thou here V " 

In June, 1775, she composed and published 
a legendary tale, " Sir Eldred of the Bower," 
together with a small poem, written before, 
entitled the " Bleeding Rock." She was about 
two weeks in composing " Sir Eldred," and 
having completed it sent it to Cadell, a London 
publisher, asking him to give her what it was 
worth. The sum which he offered far exceeded 
her expectations ; but, in addition to this, he 
assured her that if she would ascertain how 
much Goldsmith had received for his " Deserted 
Village," he would allow her the same. Miss 
More at this time had no personal acquaintance 
with Cadell, but the kindness which she re- 
ceived at his hands was the beginning of a 
friendly connection which continued until his 
death. 

This publication found a ready sale, and fully 
sustained the author's reputation. It was for 
some time the subject of conversation among 
the literary circles of London, and was much 
praised by Garrick, Johnson, Burke, and other of 
her friends. It seemed to be the general opinion 
that it was only the first fruits of an abundant 
harvest, which happily proved to be the case. 



MEMOIR OF HAx\NAH MORE. 21 

Early in 1776 Miss More again visited Lon- 
don, and continued there until late in June. 
The publication of her poem had spread her 
reputation over the kingdom, and she found 
new admirers wherever she went. One of her 
sisters, writing from London, says : — " If Han- 
nah's head stands proof against all the adulation 
and kindness of the great folks here, why then 
I will venture to say that nothing of this kind 
will hurt her hereafter." But " Hannah's head" 
was not made of materials to be turned by adula- 
tion. She seems to have always had but a poor 
opinion of her own abilities, and the flatteries 
of her friends, however gratifying they might 
have been for a time, made no impression upon 
the solid bulwark of her well-balanced mind. 

In a letter in which she describes a dinner 
which she attended, and at which both Johnson 
and Garrick were present, she narrates a little 
anecdote respecting the reading of " Sir Eldred," 
by Garrick, which is not only amusing, but 
which shows alike the excellence of the poem 
and the powers of Garrick. " I think," she says, 
" I never was so ashamed in my life ; but he 
read it so superlatively that I cried like a child. 
Only think what a scandalous thing to cry at 
the reading of one's own poetry ? I could have 
beaten myself; for it looked as if I thought it 
very moving, which I can truly say is far from 
being the case. But the beauty of the thing lies 
in this, Mrs. Garrick twinkled as well as I, and 
made as many apologies for crying at her hus- 
band's reading, as I did for crying at my own 



«' 



22 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

verses. She got out of the scrape by pretend- 
ing that she was touched at the story, and I by 
saying the same thing of the reading-." 



CHAPTER III. 

Remarks — Visits Suffolk, Norfolk, London, Hampshire, 
and Bristol — Visits London again — Illness and its effects — 
Death of Garrick — Effect on the mind of Miss More — In- 
creased seriousness. 

Miss More's protracted stay in London, 
amidst the flatteries and attentions of the wise 
and great, neither inflated her pride nor excited 
her vanity, and she returned to Bristol in June, 
1776, after an absence of six months, quite 
unchanged, and with all her original simplicity, 
to renew her labours in the establishment of 
her sister, where she continued during the re- 
mainder of the year ; when she took a tour 
through the counties of Suffolk and Norfolk to 
visit some relatives. During her absence she 
spent several days at the residence of the 
talented Mrs. Barbauld. 

From Norfolk she proceeded to London some- 
time in July, where she spent several weeks 
with Garrick, whom she accompanied in his 
visits among the nobility and gentry about town. 
She also made an excursion with him into 
Hampshire, to the seat of Mr. Wilmot, with 
whose family she was from that time intimate 
Toward the end of August, after an absence ox 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 23 

about five months, she returned to Bristol, and 
in November again visited London. 

Shortly after making these excursions she 
was attacked with a severe turn of illness, and 
as soon as she was able to be removed, ac- 
cepted an invitation from the Garricks to pay 
them a visit at Hampton Court, where she re- 
mained until 1778, employing herself as her 
health would permit in literary pursuits. Here 
she seems to have devoted more of her time to 
serious studies than she had formerly done, and 
the Bible especially was her frequent compan- 
ion. The death of several friends about this 
time also made a deep impression upon her 
mind. One of these was the wife of her excel- 
lent friend Dr. Stonehouse, which called forth 
from her pen some beautiful lines, ending 
thus : — 

" O ! if thy living excellence could teach. 
Death has a loftier emphasis of speech ; 
Let death thy strongest lesson thertlimpart, 
And write prepare to die on every heart." 

In the following winter she had another at- 
tack of illness, and was scarcely recovered 
when she was summoned to London by Mrs. 
Garrick, to mourn with her the loss of her 
gifted husband. 

Poor Garrick had been suddenly called to 
his account. He was only a little complaining 
for some days previous to his death, and on 
Sunday was in good spirits and free from pain. 
On Monday his physician became alarmed, and 
called in aid. On Tuesday he was worse. 



24 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

Mrs. Garrick attended him through a part of 
the night, and every time she administered his 
medicine, he spoke to her with pecuHar tender- 
ness and affection. Toward morning, imme- 
diately after taking his medicine, he softly said, 
" Oh ! dear," and yielded up his spirit without 
a groan on the 20th of January, 1779. 

The death of Mr. Garrick made a deep im- 
pression on the mind of Miss More, and may 
be said to have constituted a new era in her 
life. Her admiration of him was very great. 
He was her warm and fahhful friend, and had 
probably done more to bring her into notice than 
any other person. She had witnessed his ami- 
able deportment in his family, his strict moral- 
ity^ his wonderful graces of person and manner, 
and above all, had deeply participated in his 
literary tastes, studies, and friendships. He 
formed the link which connected her with fash- 
ionable life. This link was now severed, and 
the genius anfl talents of this gifted lady were 
henceforth to flow only in a channel for the be- 
nefit of mankind. 

It is quite probable that the reflections of 
Miss More on this solemn occasion led her to 
inquire into the probable condition of her friend 
in 

** That undiscover'd country, from whose bourn 
No traveller returns." 

And if so, she must have felt that there was 
little evidence of his preparation for that greai 
change which must sooner or later come upon 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 25 

all men ; that the life of gayety and fashion 
which he led, and the round of pleasures in 
which he was engaged from day to day, were 
but a poor preparation for that place into which 
nothing unholy can possibly enter. She must 
have felt that his talents had been misemployed, 
that his great powers had but little conduced 
to the good of mankind, that the moral influ- 
ence of his life, even allowing him to have 
been strictly upright in his conduct, was op- 
posed to virtue and religion. In the light of 
the gospel he is an unprofitable servant, be his 
moral conduct ever so jjonsistent, who employs 
his time and talents to no useful purpose. 

The remains of this gifted child of genius 
were deposited in Westminster Abbey, among 
the ashes of the great, with much pomp and 
solemnity. Miss More attended. Sheridan 
was chief mourner, and ten noblemen were pall 
bearers. " The choir sung," as she says in one 
of her letters, " in strains only less sublime 
than will be the archangel's trump," — every eye 
was suffused with tears. 

Her time was now divided between her 
friend Mrs. Garrick, at Hampton, and her sis- 
ters, at Bristol ; her winters being spent with 
the former, and her summers with the latter. 
From the time of Garrick's death she manifested 
an increasing dislike for the pleasures of fashion- 
able society, among which she had so freely 
mingled, and devoted herself more to serious 
studies. She was impressed with a deep sense 
of the value of time, and composed the follow 



/6 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

iHg lines on this subject, breathing the devout 
wishes of a pious heart : — 

"Soft slumbers now mine eyes forsake, 
My powers are all renew'd ; 
May my freed spirit, too, awake. 
With heavenly strength endued ! 

Thou silent murderer. Sloth, no more 

My mind imprison'd keep ; 
Nor let me waste another hour 

With thee, thou felon, Sleep. 

Hark, O my soul, could dying men 

One lavished hour retrieve, 
Though spent in tears, and pass'd in pain, 

What treasures would they give ! 

But seas of pearl, and mines of gold, 

Were ofFer'd them in vain, 
Their pearl of countless price is lost, 

And where 's their promised gain ? 

Lord, when thy day of dread account 

For squander'd hours shall come, 
O, let them not increase th' amount. 

And swell ihe former sum ! 

Teach me in health each good to prize, 

I, dying, shall esteem ; 
And every pleasure to despise, 

I then shall worthless deem. 

For all thy wond'rous mercies past, 

My grateful voice I raise, 
While thus 1 quit the bed of rest, 

Creation's Lord to praise." 

It was becoming evident to all her friends 
that Miss More was desirous to withdraw her- 
self from society merely worldly, and to devote 
her talents to some useful purpose. In her 
studies she preferred the Bible to all other 
books : it was her daily companion, and the 



MEMOIR OF HAxXXAH MORE. 27 

more she studied it the more it became endeared 
to her. She now commenced her " Sacred 
Dramas," the composition of which afforded 
her much pleasure. In the winter of 1780, 
while she was at Mrs. Garrick's, she assisted 
in arranging and filing Garrick's letters ; and 
the employment brought up the most serious 
reflections. " Where now," she says, " are al- 
most all the great men who wrote these letters? 
Little did they think when they penned these 
bright epistles that their heads were so soon 
to be laid low." 

Her friend Mrs. Boscawen sent her an excel- 
lent work which had then just made its appear- 
ance, entitled " Cardiphonia," which she read 
with avidity. " I like it," she says, " prodi- 
giously : it is full of vital, experimental reli- 
gion." Her father, who was now in his 81st 
year, was highly gratified to learn this change 
in the pursuits and disposition of his amiable 
daughter, and wrote her a poetic epistle express- 
ive of the deep concern he had felt for her wel- 
fare, and the pleasure he derived from her in- 
creased seriousness, which afforded her much 
satisfaction. 

In 1782 Miss More published in one volume 
her " Sacred Dramas," together with an episto- 
lary poem, entitled " Sensibility." The work 
was well received, and had an extensive sale. 
It was designed chiefly for the young, whom it 
was well calculated to interest and instruct : 
but one of her biographers justly observes, that 
*' it may be doubted whether dramatic compo- 



28 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

sitions can ever render the simple narratives ol 
Scripture more interesting than they are in 
themselves. There is something in them so 
inimitably touching that they seem to suffer 
from the most laboured attempts of human effort 
to give them increasing interest." 

While Miss More was writing this volume, 
she became more deeply impressed with reli- 
gious subjects. Her views of the great leading 
doctrines of Christianity seem to have under- 
gone a change. She now saw that salvation 
by faith was the only method recognized in the 
word of God, and her deep humility, and her 
anxiety after religious instruction, are convincing 
evidences that, in the language of the Saviour, 
she " was not far from the kingdom of God." 



CHAPTER IV. 

Her religious state — Death of her father — Refuses to visit 
the theatre — " Bas Bleu" — Elected a member of the French 
Academy of Sciences — The poor milk-woman — Death of Dr. 
Johnson. 

We have intimated that Miss More was 
turning her attention from things merely of a 
worldly nature, and devoting it more to the 
great interests of religion. Still the change 
does not appear to have been thorough in its 
commencement ; but, as is frequently the case, 
was gradual and progressive. She did not ab- 
stain entirely from mingling with fashionable 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 29 

society, or from visiting places of public amuse- 
ment ; but she always went reluctantly, and to 
gratify her friends rather than herself She 
was still on terms of close intimacy with nearly 
all who made any pretensions to literary pur- 
suitSj and the difficulty of severing the ties 
which thus bound her to society she felt to be 
very great. We find her, however, mingling 
much more with persons of acknowledged piety, 
in whose conversation and instructions she 
seemed to take great delight. 

In 1782 she spent some time with the excel- 
lent and learned Dr. Kennicott, and also with 
the bishop of Llandaff, where she again met 
Dr. Johnson. She returned to Bristol in July, 
and soon after received intelligence of the death 
of her aged and pious father. This, though not 
unexpected, was a heavy stroke, and affected 
her most sensibly. For three weeks she could 
not be persuaded to leave her room. Such an 
affecting providence, at a time when her heart 
was open to the divine teaching, was well cal- 
culated to deepen her religious impressions. 
Accordingly we find her afterward refusing to 
mingle in many of those scenes of pleasure in 
which she had hitherto thought it no harm to 
indulge. " I refused," she says, " to accom- 
pany Lady Spencer to hear Mrs. Siddons, though 
her ladyship took the pains yesterday to come 
and solicit me ;" and afterward, when strongly 
urged to attend at the performance of " Percy," 
one of her own tragedies, she exhibited the 
same firmness. 



30 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

Such singularity, in an age when the religious 
world was much less strict in its outward con- 
duct than at present, sometimes laid her open to 
the censure of her friends, who upbraided her 
with epithets not then considered as the most 
respectful. " A visitor," she says in one of her 
letters, " has just gone away quite chagrined 
that I am such a rigid Methodist that I cannot 
come to her assembly on Sunday, though she 
protests, with great apparent piety, that she 
never has cards, and that it is quite savage in 
me to think there can be any harm in a little 
agreeable music." 

In the spring of 1784 she wrote an interest- 
ing poem, entitled " Bas Bleu." The circum- 
stances which gave rise to this poem are briefly 
these. Mrs. Vesey, a lady of distinction resid- 
ing in London, had established a literary society 
composed of the lovers of letters of both sexes, 
the meetings of which were held at her house. 
Among the gentlemen who usually attended 
was Mr. Stillingfleet, as remarkable for his 
eccentricity as he was for his great learning, 
and who always wore blue stockings^ a circum- 
stance which caused the society to be called 
" The Blue Stocking Club," a cognomen which 
an intelligent foreigner translated literally "Bas 
Bleu," (" blue stocking.") This circumstance 
gave a name to her poem, the object of which 
was to exculpate the society from some un- 
merited aspersions which had been cast upon it 
because the amusement of cards had been ex- 
cluded. 



^ 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 31 

The poem, thus originated, was sent to a 
literary friend, W. W. Pepys, Esq., with the 
request that he would make any corrections he 
saw fit, and then forward the manuscript to 
Mrs. Vesey, without intimating from whom it 
came. It was the subject of much commend- 
ation among her friends, many of whom urged 
her to give it to the world. Dr. Johnson espe- 
cially bestowed much praise upon it, declaring 
that "there was no name in [the annals of] 
poetry that might not be glad to own it.* The 
poem was not however published until three 
years after. 

She continued to spend much time with Mrs. 
Garrick, where she was necessarily brought 
into fr^iquent contact with the fashionable world, 
but she always used discrimination in accepting 
the invitations which flowed in upon her from 
all quarters. In one of her letters she says, " I 
was present the other night at a great assembly, 
which was so hot, so crowded, and so fine, that 
I never passed a more dull, unpleasant evening. 

* This approbation of the learned doctor is thus comnmni 
cated to her sister in one of her letters: — " Did I tell yon I 
went to see Dr. Johnson ? He received me with the great- 
est kindness and affection ; and as to the ' Bas Bleu,' all the 
flattery I ever received from every body together, would not 
make up his sum. He said — but I seriously insist you do 
not tell any body, for I am ashamed of writing it even to 
you — he said there was no name in poetry that might not be 
glad to own it. You cannot imagine how I stared. All this 
from Johnson, that parsimonious praiser. I told him I was 
delighted at his approbation ; he answered quite character 
istically, 'And so you may, for I give you the opinion of a 
man who does not rate his judgment in these things very low. 
I can tell you.' " 



32 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

I am absolutely resolved to go no more to such 
parties : how I grudged the waste of time." 

In the same year Miss More received a letter 
from the president of the French Academy of 
Science, informing her that she had been elect- 
ed a member of their society, as a testimony of 
the high regard they had entertained for her 
talents. The honor was gratefully received, 
and acknowledged in a reply to the president's 
letter. 

The benevolence of her disposition was about 
this time finely illustrated by an incident which 
we shall relate. While residing at Bristol the 
cook informed the family that a person who 
called daily for kitchen stufT to feed her pig, 
was, with her husband and several qj^ildren, 
absolutely perishing with hunger. In taking 
steps to rescue this wretched family, it was dis- 
covered that the woman possessed extraordinary 
talents which all her miseries had been unable 
to repress. She produced several scraps of 
verses which bore striking indications of genius, 
and at once enlisted Miss More eflectually in 
her behalf. She paid her a visit at her miser- 
able hovel, inquired into her condition, educa- 
tion, habits, morals, <fec. ; gave her lessons in 
orthography, and instructed her in such other 
knowledge as she most required ; corrected the 
errors of her writings, and at her own risk and 
expense published a volume of her poems. But 
her benevolence did not stop here. She wrote 
letters to all her friends, stating the interest she 
had taken in the condition of the woman, and 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 33 

desired their assistance. By these means she 
raised the sum of £600 sterling, nearly three 
thousand dollars, which was placed at the dis- 
posal of a committee to be applied to her use in 
the way they deemed most advisable. So ex • 
traordinary were her exertions that she declares 
she wrote more than a thousand letters to ad- 
vance her benevolent object. 

It is mortifying to know that her noble gene- 
rosity was but poorly repaid. No sooner: was 
Ann Yearsley, the poor milk-woman, informed 
of the amount which had been raised for her 
benefit than she began to be elated with pride, 
and manifested the blackest ingratitude for all 
the favours which had been heaped upon her. 
She employed the bitterest expressions of re- 
sentment against her benefactress for having 
represented her, in the preface to the volume of 
poems published for her benefit, as an object of 
charity : and inasmuch as Miss More had caused 
the money raised to be placed in the hands of 
a committee, instead of making it an uncondi- 
tional gift, she accused her of retaining it for 
her own use : and even went so far as to assert 
that the blemishes in her poems were occa- 
sioned by the alterations which Miss More had 
seen fit to make. 

Under this base treatment Miss More's con- 
duct was such as became the disciple of the 
lowly Jesus. She did not revile in her turn, 
did not even take the trouble to contradict her 
calumnies, but left her vile assertions to refute 
themselves. "I grieve most," she writes, "for 
3 



34 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

poor fallen human nature. I am persuaded thai 
Providence intends me good by it. Had the 
woman turned out well, which I fondly hoped 
would be the case, I should have had my re- 
ward ; as it is I have my trial. Perhaps I was 
too vain of my success, and in counting over 
the money might be elated, and ready to say, 
* Is not this great Babylon that I have builded V " 

Nor did the unprincipled conduct of the milk- 
woman prevent her benefactress from still ex- 
erting herself in her behalf. In one of her let- 
ters she says : — " I shall continue to take the 
same care of her pecuniary interests, and am 
even now engaged in bringing out a second 
edition of her poems. My conscience tells me 
that I ought not to give up my exertions for the 
children on account of their mother's wicked- 
ness." This noble magnanimity was worthy of 
a follower of Him who, in his last hour, cried, 
" Father, forgive them ; they know not what 
they do." 

About this time Miss More was called to 
mourn the loss of ant)ther of her very intimate 
friends, the great, the lamented Dr. Johnson. 
The evening shadows had long been gathering 
around his life, and the night of death was soon 
to extinguish for ever one of the mightiest intel- 
lects which had ever shed its genius on the 
pages of literature. From their first acquaint- 
ance the doctor had manifested a deep interest 
in Miss More and her productions, and he had 
marked with great satisfaction the tendency of 
her later writings to advance the great interests 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 35 

of morals and religion ; and she, equally alive to 
the welfare of her valued and learned friend, 
felt the deepest anxiety about his declining 
health, " Poor, dear Johnson !" she writes, "is 
past all hope. The dropsy has brought him 
to the point of death. 1 hav-e,- however, the 
comfort to hear that his dread of dying is in a 
great measure subdued ; and now he says, ' the 
bitterness of death is past.' " And again, " How- 
delighted should I be to hear the conversation 
of this great and good man, now that his faith 
has subdued his fears." 

Dr. Johnson had long been a powerful de- 
fender of Christianity, but yet it may be doubted 
whether he possessed that lively faith which 
reaHzes to the Christian all the promises of the 
gospel. The religion he had advocated con- 
sisted almost solely in obedience to moral pre- 
cepts. He seemed not to comprehend that true 
piety could proceed only from a living faith in a 
crucified and risen Saviour, procuring pardon 
and peace for its possessor, and producing holi- 
ness of heart and life. Death always seemed 
to him as " the king of terrors," and the nearer 
he approached, the more did he shrink from 
meeting this last enemy. He had not yet 
learned that the " sting of death is sin," and 
that the " victory" is to be obtained through 
faith in the Redeemer. 

But on the near prospect of eternity, the doc- 
tor began to perceive the sandy foundation on 
which he stood, and became alarmed for his 
insecurity and danger; and when it was inti- 



36 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

mated to him that he might dismiss his fears 
because he had done so much in his writings 
for the cause of moraUty and religion, he re- 
marked, " I have indeed written piously, but I 
have lived too much like other men." 

In this state of mind he desired a pious cler- 
gyman to be called, who unfortunately felt him- 
self unable to comply. He however wrote him 
a note, pointing him to "the Lamb of God that 
taketh away the sin of the world." The doctor 
was exceedingly pleased with the letter, and 
very desirous to see the writer ; but in this 
he was not gratified : he, however, received 
from him another letter, which, with the conver- 
sation of a pious friend, was sanctified to his 
good, and he was brought to renounce self, to 
place his sole reliance on Jesus as his Saviour, 
and at last he overcame the fear of death and 
died in peace. 

The state of Miss More's mind cannot be 
better shown than by quoting some of her in- 
structive observations on the death of her la- 
mented friend. She says : — " I cannot con- 
clude without remarking what honour God has 
hereby put upon the doctrine of faith in a cruci- 
fied Saviour. The man whose intellectual 
powers had awed all around him was, in his 
turn, made to tremble, when the period arrived 
at which all knowledge is useless, and vanishes 
away, except the knowledge of the true God, 
and of Jesus Christ whom he hath sent. Ef- 
fectually to attain this knowledge, this giant in 
literature must become a little child. The man 



MEMOIR OF HANXAH MORE. 37 

looked up to as a prodigy of wisdom must be- 
come a fool that he might be wise." Such 
reflections indicate a mind deeply imbued with 
the doctrines of the gospel, and show how they 
influenced her thoughts, words, and actions. 



CHAPTER V. 

Purchases Cowslip Green — Manner of spending her time 
— Dispenses reproof — Publishes " Bas Bleu," and "Florio' 
— Publishes " Thoughts on the Importance of the Manners 
of the Great" — "Bonner's Ghost." 

The very extensive acquaintance which Miss 
More had formed subjected her to the greatest 
inconveniences, and brought upon her such con- 
stant interruptions, and made such frequent de- 
mands upon her time, that she had long desired 
some place of seclusion to which she could 
retreat at her pleasure, and pursue her literary 
labours free from the bustle and confusion of 
city life. Accordingly, having accumulated a 
sum suflicient to answer her purpose, by the 
sale of her works, and from other sources, she 
set about carrying this purpose into effect, and 
purchased a small estate and cottage, not far 
from Bristol, called " Cowslip Green," to which 
she intended immediately to repair. The house 
was accordingly fitted up for her use in the 
summer of 1785, and she took possession of it 
in the following autumn. For some years she 
continued to occupy this delightful retreat dur- 



38 MEMOIR OF IIAXXAH MORE. 

ing the warm months, and in the winter to join 
her friend Mrs. Garrick, in London. 

While in London she made it a rule to have 
her mornings and her Sabbaths entirely to her- 
self, which she employed in devotional exer- 
cises, and in reading the Scriptures, or some 
work on theology. She absented herself from 
all those circles of gayety, much as she might 
be urged to attend, when she had reason to 
think the time would be employed lo no useful 
purpose ; but delighted to mingle with those 
little social or literary circles, where the mind 
was strengthened and improved by rational con- 
versation, or the heart mellowed and bettered 
by the influences of religion. "I spent," she 
says, " quite a rational, sober, country day, on 
Thursday, with the wise and virtuous Langton, 
and Lady Rothes ; so peaceful that I could 
hardly persuade myself that I was in London : 
dined at three ; sat and worked while he read 
to us, or talked of books, till late at night. I 
really begin to hope we are reforming, for on 
Saturday we got such another sober day at Mrs. 
Montague's, where we all agreed we had not 
been so comfortable for a long time ; yet people 
have seldom, the sense thus to meet, but must 
assemble in herds or flocks." Again she says, 
" I have kept my resolution to avoid these great 
crowds, except when I have been snared into 
them by the alluring name of a private party, a 
trap into which I have sometimes fallen." 

But Miss More not only felt it a duty to im 
prove to the best advantage every moment of 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 39 

her time, but she also took occas.ion to drop a 
seasonable word of advice and reproof, vvhere- 
ever she thought they would be received. 
"Lady B. and .1," she says, "had a long dis- 
course, yesterday ; she seems anxious for reli- 
gious information. I told her much plain truth, 
and she bore it so well that I ventured to give 
her Doddridge. Should she not stumble at the 
threshold, from the strong manner in which 
the book opens, I trust she will read it with 
good efTect. Miss M. has been with me seve- 
ral times : she is beautiful, and accomplished, 
and surrounded with flatterers, and sunk in dis- 
sipation. I asked her why she continued to 
live so much below not only her principles, but 
her understanding ; what pleasure she derived 
from crowds of persons so inferior to her ; did 
it make her happy ? ' Happy,' she said, ' no ;' 
she was miserable : she despised the society 
she lived in, and had no eajoyment of the plea- 
sure in which her life was consumed. But 
what could she do ? she could not be singular : 
she must do as her acquaintance did. I urged 
the evil of such conduct home upon her con- 
science with such force that she wept bitterly, 
and embraced me. I conjured her to read her 
Bible,, with which she is utterly unacquainted." 
In 1787 Miss More published two poems, 
both of which did credit ahke to her genius and 
piety. " Bas Bleu," or " Conversation," we have 
already remarked, had met with very warm 
commendation among her friends, and the judg- 
ment of the public was not less flattering, li 



40 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

this poem she exposes the folly of those who 
dissipate their hours in a round of unmeaning 
folly, and then draws a beautiful picture of ra- 
tional social converse. Many excellent extracts 
might be made, but our limits will not permit 
more than the following : — 

" Our intellectual ore must shine, 
Not slumber idly in the mine. 
Let education's moral mint 
The noblest images imprint ; 
Let taste her curious touchstone hold. 
To try if standard be the gold ; 
But 'tis thy commerce, conversation. 
Must give it use by circulation ; 
That noblest commerce of mankind. 
Whose precious merchandize is mind.'* 

The other poem was entitled " Florio, a Tale 
for Fine Gentlemen and Fine Ladies." It was 
dedicated to Horace Walpole, afterward ear} 
of Orford, with whom she was on terms of inti- 
macy. It exhibits the portraiture of a man of 
fashion and dissipation, sketched from the man- 
ners of the age, contrasted with the characte) 
of an English gentleman of the old school ; and 
ends in reforming Florio, by marrying him to a 
pious and amiable woman, the daughter of this 
country gentleman. The idle, vacant mind of 
the mere fop is well drawn in the character of 
Florio, as also the tendency of such an indolent, 
superficial mind, to skepticism and infidelity. 
The change in Florio after his marriage is thus 
beautifully described : — 

" Abroad with joy and grateful pride 
He walks vviih Celia by his side ; 
A thousand cheerful thoughts arise. 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 41 

Each rural scene enchants his eyes. 
With transport he begins to look 
On nature's all-instructive book : 
No objects now seem mean or low, 
Which point to Him from whom they flow 
A berry, or a bud excites 
A chain of reasoning which delights ; 
Which, spite of skeptic ebullitions, 
Proves atheists not the best logicians ; 
A tree, a book, a blade of grass 
Suggests reflections as they pass ; 
Till Florio with a sigh confest 
The simplest pleasures are the best. 
As pious Celia raised the theme 
To holy faith and love supreme, 
Enlighten'd Florio learn 'd to trace 
In nature's God, the God of grace. 
Florio, escaped from fashion's school, 
His heart and conduct learns to rule ; 
Conscience his youthful life approves. 
He serves his God, his country loves. 
Reveres her laws, protects her rights, 
And for her interest pleads or fights ; 
Reviews with scorn his former life. 
And for his rescue thanks his wife." 

The same desire of correcting some of the 
follies of fashionable life which led her to the 
composition of " Florio," induced her soon after 
to write a tract which she entitled " Thoughts 
on the Importance of the Manners of the Great 
to General Society." It was written during the 
summer in her retirement at Cowslip Green, 
and was also published in 1787, but without 
her name. The subject was handled" with 
great ability, and the work was generally ac- 
knowledged to be the production of one fa- 
miliar with the foibles of rank and fashion. 
"Never," says one well able to judge, "were 
the evils of a mere life of inactivity and frivolity 



42 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

more correctly depicted, or more faithfully re^ 
proved. The spirit of the world is shown to be 
in every point directly hostile to that of Chris- 
tianity, and all efforts to make the love of the 
former, with the pursuit of its vanities, compat- 
ible with the love of the latter, are exposed as 
utterly delusive. The mask of piety is torn 
from the mere formalist, his inconsistencies are 
exposed, and he is exhibited in his native 
deformity." 

The work created considerable sensation at 
the time, and was very useful : its author, how- 
ever, did not long remain unknown, and con- 
gratulations and acknowledgments were soon 
poured in upon her from every quarter. Mr. 
Newton, in a letter to her, thus does justice to 
the high motives which influenced her in this 
production. "I congratulate you," he says, "on 
the performance, and especially on the choice 
of a subject. You could easily write what 
would procure you more general applause ; but 
it is a singular privilege to have a consecrated 
pen, and to be able and willing to devote our 
talents to the cause of piety." The work, how- 
ever, though on an unpopular subject, was well 
received, and several successive editions printed 
off and sold. 

It would hardly be expected that writings 
of the character which Miss More was now 
engaged in putting before the world, would cir- 
culate widely without occasionally giving of- 
fence. This, however, she little regarded, and 
in one of !ier letters relates an amusing attack 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 43 

which was made upon her by a gentleman 
whom she visited. " He took me to task," she 
says, " for having exhibited such monstrously 
absurd doctrines. He defended (and that was 
the joke) religion against me, and said he would 
do so against the whole bench of bishops, that 
the fourth commandment [enjoining the sanctity 
of the sabbath] was the most amiable and mer- 
ciful law ever promulgated, as it entirely con- 
siders the care and comfort of the hard-labor- 
ing poor, and beasts of burden ; but that it was 
never intended for persons of fashion who had 
no occasion to rest, as they never do any thing 
on other days ; and indeed at the time the law 
was made there were no people of fashion. He 
really pretended to be in earnest, and we parted 
mutually unconvinced: he lamenting that I am 
fallen into the heresy of puritanical strictness ; 
and I lamenting that he is a person of fashion 
for whom the ten commandments were not 
made." 

We find Miss More in 1789 spending some 
time with different friends. In May she visited 
Mr. Walpole ; in June she was with the bishop 
of London at Fulham, and also with Mr. Bou- 
verie in Kent. While at Fulham she wrote 
another little poem, called " Bonner's Ghost," in 
which she severely satirizes the superstitious 
mummeries of the Romish Church. The circum- 
stances which led to its composition she thus 
relates : — " In the gardens of the palace at Ful- 
ham is a dark recess ; at the end of this stands 
a chair which once belonged to Bishop Bonner. 



44 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

The poem is founded on a legend connected 
with the palace at Fulham. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Visits her friends — Begtns her schools — Publishes her 
"Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable World" — 
Continues to devote much time to her schools — Her plans 
of instruction — Annual festival — Goes to Bath. 

In the summer of 1789, after a short stay at 
Cowslip Green, we find Miss More travelling 
with Mr. and Mrs. Wilberforce through some 
of the northern counties of England. On her 
return she spent some time with the dowager 
duchess at Stoke. In the autumn she just 
called on Mrs. Montague in Berkshire, and af- 
terward paid a short visit to the bishop of Sa- 
lisbury. Alluding to these visits she says : — 
" With all rny fantastic dreams of hermitage 
and retreat, and a place to retire to be melan- 
choly in, any thing less like a hermit, or more 
like a fine lady, cannot be easily conceived." 
It would seem, however, that Miss More was 
far from being idle, and that her head, prompt- 
ed by her heart, was labouring with designs for 
the benefit of her fellow creatures which would 
require greater exertions than any which she 
had hitherto undertaken. These labours are al- 
luded to in a letter to Mrs. Carter, as follows: — 

" I am engaged in a work in which I am 
sure I shall have your hearty prayers and good 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 45 

wishes. You will, I dare say, mistake the 
word work, and think it some literary vanity ; 
but no, this is it. A friend of mine and myself, 
having with great concern discovered a very 
large villaore at some miles distance from me, 
containing incredible multitudes of poor, plung- 
ed in an excess of vice, poverty, and ignorance, 
beyond what one would suppose possible in a 
civilized and Christian country, have under- 
taken the task of seeing if we cannot become 
humble instruments of usefulness to these poor 
creatures, in the way of schools and a little 
sort of manufactory. The difficulties are great, 
and my hopes not sanguine ; but He who does 
not despise the day of small things will, I trust, 
bless this project." 

This important work, thus suggested, com- 
manded much of her attention during the re- 
mainder of her life, and she was assisted in it 
more or less by all her sisters. These pious 
and indefatigable women, having accumulated 
by their labors a handsome competence, dis- 
posed of their establishment in Bristol, and in 
the latter part of 1789 removed to Bath where 
they built a house and resided, but frequently 
spent a portion of the summer months with 
their sister at Cowslip Green. But their retire- 
ment was not marked by a course of self-in- 
dulgence and inactivity. Having learned the 
benevolent object of Hannah's labours, they 
cheerfully and vigorously lent their aid, and 
during a long life the gratuitous religious in- 
.struction and improvement of the poor and their 



46 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

children in the surrounding country, occupied a 
great share of their attention. 

The spot on which Miss More' had deter- 
mined to plant the standard of Christian edu- 
cation was the village of Cheddan, about ten 
miles distant from Cowslip Green ; a place 
which was, at the time, much more remark- 
able for its romantic scenery than for the intel- 
ligence and morality of its inhabitants : so that, 
notwithstanding the benevolence of her designs, 
she found many difficulties to encounter before 
she could even succeed in making a com- 
mencement. Learning that it was necessary 
to gain the good will of the principal man of 
the village, she called on him and disclosed 
her plan in the hope that it would meet his 
apprcbation : but in this she was disappointed. 
He desired that she would not bring any reli- 
gion into the place, adding, '* it is the worst 
thing in the world for the poor, making them 
lazy and worthless." Finding that she had to 
contend with great difficulties, and that friends 
must be secured or her project would fail, she 
was most assiduous in her attentions to the 
people of the village, and made eleven more 
calls of a similar kind, by which means she 
finally overcame their prejudices so far that 
she deemed it safe to proceed. In a letter to 
Mr. Wilberforce she playfully describes the 
success of her efforts as follows: — "Miss Wil- 
berforce," she says, " would have been shocked 
had she seen the petty tyrants whose insolence 
I stroked and tamed, the ugly children I praised, 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 47 

the pointers and spaniels I caressed, the ci- 
der I commended and the wine I swallowed. 
After these irresistible flatteries, I inquired of 
each if he could recommend me to a house ; 
and said that I had a little plan which I hoped 
would secure their orchards from being robbed, 
their rabbits from being shot, their game from 
being stolen, and which might lower the poor 
rates. If effect be the best proof of eloquence, 
then mine was a good speech, for I gained at 
length the hearty concurrence of the whole 
people." 

In another part of this letter she says : — " I 
procured immediately a good house, which, 
when a partition is taken down and a window 
added, will receive a great number of children. 
The house and an excellent garden of almost 
an acre of ground, I have taken at once for six 
guineas and a half per year. 1 have ventured 
to take it for seven years, — there is courage for 
you! it is to be put in order immediately; 'for 
the night cometh :' and it is a comfort to think, 
that though I may be dust and ashes in a iew 
weeks, yet by that time this business will be 
in actual motion." 

The school thus commenced soon obtained 
considerable popularity in the neighbourhood, 
and from a small number gradually increased 
to near three hundred scholars. Before long it 
was evident that she was right, and that the 
loose practices of the village were undergoing 
reform. Many of the poor who had hitherto 
been dissipated and idle became sober and or- 



48 MEMOIR OF ilANXAH MORE. 

derly members of society, and the more wealthy 
were soon glad to second her exertions. Grati- 
fied at her uniooked-for success, she determined 
to enlarge her field of labours, and in conjunc- 
tion with one of her sisters she set about look- 
ing up another place where she might repeat 
her efforts with like success. She was not 
long in finding another village equally destitute 
of moral culture, and commenced with the same 
zeal another establishment which was also soon 
placed on a respectable footing, and " in the 
full tide of successful experiment." These la- 
bours had so much excited her interest that she 
regretted her usual engagement to spend the 
winter in London with Mrs. Garrick, whither, 
however, she proceeded early in January, 1790. 
While in London she published, without her 
name, an essay, on which she had for some 
time been engaged, entitled "An Estimate of 
the Religion of the Fashionable World." No 
sooner did it appear than it was bought up 
with the greatest eagerness, and universally 
considered as the production of her pen. Ca- 
dell, her publisher, had been requested to for- 
ward a copy to several of her friends, but not 
to name the author. Mrs. Chapone, on receiv- 
ing one of these, in a letter to Miss More thus 
acknowledged its receipt : — " The same good 
gentleman who some time ago gave his excel- 
lent thoughts to the great has again made a 
powerful effort for their reformation, which they 
receive with as much avidity as if they meant 
to be amended by it ; indeed he has wisely 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 49 

recommended it to their taste by every charm 
and ornament of eloquence. He has been so 
obliging as to send me a copy of his admirable 
book ; and as I do not know his name or ad- 
dress, I take the liberty of applying to you who 
are, I believe, pretty vi^ell acquainted with him, 
though probably not aware of half his merits. 
I beg you will convey to him my grateful ac- 
knowledgments for his favour, assure him that 
he continually rises in my esteem, and (gentle- 
man though he be) I sincerely love and honour 
him, and wish the most perfect success to all 
his undertakings." 

In a like letter from Bishop Porteus, to whom 
Cadell had forwarded a copy, it was observed : 
— " Indeed, my dear friend, it is in vain to think 
of concealing yourself- Your style and manner 
are so marked, and so confessedly superior to 
any moral writer of the present age, that you 
will be immediately detected by any one that 
pretends to any taste and skill in discriminating 
the characteristic excellencies of one author 
from another." The bishop of Salisbury also 
addressed her in a similar manner. " Neither 
your wishes for concealment," says he, "nor 
my silence, will avail : the internal evidence is 
too powerful ; and no doubt can remain on the 
mind of the reader of the * Thoughts on the 
Manners of the Great,' whether ' The ReUgion 
of the Fashionable World' proceeds from the 
same excellent heart and eloquent pen." Mrs. 
Boscawen in a letter to the same effect writes : — 
" Indeed, my good friend, your plan of secrecy 
4 



50 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

would have succeeded perfectly, if giants could 
be concealed : but if, like Saul, you are higher 
than any of the people from the shoulders and 
upward, you must be conspicuous." Mr. New- 
ton writes thus : — " I received, last week, ' An 
Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable 
World.' Somebody deserves thanks for the 
pleasure its perusal has given me, and I con- 
ceive that nobody has a better title to them 
than yourself." 

At the period when this excellent work made 
its appearance, true religion was almost extinct 
among the influential classes of England : the 
form existed, but it was without life, and even 
its authorized teachers advocated it more as a 
fiction than as an emanation from the Deity, 
The intercourse of Miss More with fashionable 
society made her familiar with these facts, and 
it was the design of her work to point out some 
of the causes which had thus lowered the stan- 
dard of Christian piety and presented religion 
to the world as a dead and spiritless system 
devoid of practical results. The work is writ- 
ten in the best possible spirit, and was well 
calculated to accomplish the ends which the 
amiable author had in view. After showing 
that Christianity, as it then existed, was alto- 
gether different from that system of faith preach- 
ed by the Saviour and his apostles, she goes on 
to trace the decay of piety to the want of early 
religious education — the omission of family de- 
votion among professors — the want of harmony 
between Christian faith and Christian practice. 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 51 

&c., and closes the work by some pointed and 
severe censures on those individuals who, while 
they admire Christianity as a system of morals, 
deny its divine authority. 

Soon after the publication of this volume 
Miss More returned to her cottage at Cowslip 
Green, and renewed her labours in giving in- 
struction to the poor of the neighbouring pa- 
rishes. Her efforts had been successful far be- 
yond her hopes ; and, aided by her sisters, she 
was constantly extending them, and making 
such improvements as her better experience 
suggested. In 1791 she received a visit from 
the Rev. John Newton, who went with her from 
mountain to valley through her field of labor, 
which then extended over a circuit of nearly 
ten miles, and embraced no less than six dif- 
ferent schools. His excellent counsels and pi- 
ous instructions gave her much encouragement, 
and stimulated her to increased exertions. 

At no great distance from her residence was 
a village, so abandoned to profligacy and igno- 
rance, that she had hitherto been dissuaded 
from attempting any reformation, on- account of 
the rudeness and ferocity of the inhabitants. 
She now, however, determined to make the at- 
tempt, and, although her friends continued to 
remonstrate, yet, acting on the principle that the 
more they were degraded the more they stood 
in need of instruction, she commenced the 
work and was, happily, most successful. A 
spot where all was misery, confusion, and vice, 
in a few months, by the feeble efforts of two or 



52 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

three unprotected females, was transformed into 
a peaceful and orderly community. 

Such results were cheering indeed, and, to 
a benevolent mind, brought with them a rich 
reward. Religious instruction formed a promi- 
nent part of her plan, and she coupled with the 
literary exercises a Sunday evening service for 
religious worship, which was made accessible 
to all. These meetings were opened by read- 
ing a portion of Scripture, then a suitable 
prayer was offered up, and afterward a plain 
short sermon, selected from some pious author, 
was read, when the meeting closed. One of 
the sisters usually conducted these exercises : 
and, at first, they met with some opposition. 
In a letter to Mr. Wilberforce Miss More says : 
" It was, at first, thought very Methodistical, 
and we got a few broken windows ; but quiet 
perseverance carried us through. Many repro- 
bates were, by the blessing of God, awakened, 
and many swearers and sabbath breakers re- 
claimed. The numbers, both of young and old 
scholars, increased, and the daily life and con- 
versation of many seemed to keep pace with 
their religious profession on the Sunday. We 
now begin to distribute Bibles and prayer- 
books, with some other religious publications." 

The ignorance that prevailed among the 
lower classes in this part of England, at this 
time, was most deplorable. Miss More tells 
us, in one of her letters, that " not one out of 
more than a hundred children, in one parish, 
could tell who made them." Very few were 



MEMOIR OF IIAXXAH MORE. 53 

able to read, and still fewer were acquainted 
with the leading doctrines of the Christian reli- 
gion. But, besides this degrading ignorance, 
they were also very poor, and it was the de- 
sign of these excellent ladies to better their 
temporal as well as their spiritual condition. 
To ac(;omplish this last purpose Miss More di- 
vided them into societies, and introduced among 
them several little arts, stimulated their indus- 
try, and taught them economy. She also insti- 
tuted a sort of annual feast, at which she or 
some one or more of her sisters always attend- 
ed, together with some clergymen and other 
guests, who might be invited. These little 
regulations had the happiest effect : " Among 
their advantages," she says, " one is, that the 
women, who used to plead that they could not 
come to church because they had no clothes, 
now are seldom absent. The necessity of at- 
tending public worship with us in the proces- 
sion, on the anniversary, raises an honest am- 
bition to provide something decent to wear, 
and the churches are now filled, on a Sunday, 
with clean-looking women." 

The expense of establishing and keeping up 
all these schools must, of course, have been 
very great, notwithstanding the rigid economy 
used, and far exceeding the ftieans of either 
Miss More or her sisters. They were, how- 
ever, responsible for all the debts incurred, and, 
besides their exertions, contributed largely of 
the means they possessed, while liberal contri- 
butions were made among their friends, from 



54 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

time to time, in order to supply the remainder. 
But their exertions for these destitute, ignorant, 
and neglected people were of that truly bene- 
volent character, which looked not for their re- 
ward in this world, and did not, therefore, 
pause at trifling impediments. 

In a letter to Mrs. Kennicott Miss More 
amusingly describes one of her annual festivals ; 
and, from her playful manner, one would almost 
be led to the opinion that her undertaking cost 
her neither anxiety nor self-denial. " I have," 
she says, " kept this scrawl some days for want 
of time to finish it, so busy have we been in pre- 
paring for a grand celebration distinguished by 
the pompous name of Mendip Feast. The 
range of hills you remember, in this country, 
on the top of which we yesterday gave a din- 
ner of beef, and plum-pudding, and cider to our 
schools. There were not quite six hundred 
children ; for I would not admit the nevv 
schools, telling them they must be good for a 
a year or two to be entitled to so good a thing 
as a dinner. We had two tents pitched on the 
hill ; our cloth was spread around, and we were 
enclosed in a fence, within which, in a circle, 
the children sat. We all went in wagons and 
carried a large company of our own to carve for 
the children, \\ho sung psalms very prettily in 
the intervals. Curiosity had drawn a great 
multitude for a country so thinly populated ; 
five thousand was the estimated number pre- 
sent. Nearly all the clergy of the neighbour- 
hood came, and I requested ^ separate minister 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 55 

to say grace for each parish." She concludes 
the descri])tion by saying, " We all parted with 
the most perfect peace, having fed about nine 
hundred people for less than a fine dinner for 
twenty would cost." 

The extraordinary exertions of Miss More, 
in sustaining and improving these schools, du- 
ring the summer and autumn, together with her 
frequent exposure to night air and bad weather, 
occasioned by her journeys, at length proved 
too much for her health and she was compelled 
to retire to Bath to recruit ; where, however, she 
formed new designs of usefulness in the further 
enlargement of her labours : " I am thankful," 
she says, in one of her letters, " for the pros- 
pect of laying in a little health for future ser- 
vices, for I have partly pledged myself, in my 
own mind, if I live and have health and money, 
(o take up two new parishes, next spring, four 
miles below Cheddar. These parishes are 
large and populous, they are as dark as Africa, 
and I do not like the thought that, at the day of 
judgment, any people should 'be found to have 
perished who were within my possible reach, 
and only that I might have a little more ease." 
These resolves were, through great difficulty 
and much opposition, carried into full effect on 
her returc. to Cowslip Green the next spring. 



56 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Death bed scenes — Attention to the afflicted — Visit t« 
London — Publishes " Village Politics" — Publishes " Re- 
marks on Dupont's Speech" — Attack on her writings-^ 
Commences the " Monthly Repository." 

It has been well said that 

"The chamber where the good man meets his fate 
Is privileged beyond the common walk 
Of virtuous life." 

The death of the Christian is his last triumph. 
"The sting of death is sin,^ and sin having 
been conquered through faith in the Redeemer, 
the dying Christian is enabled to cry out, 
" Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory 
through our Lord Jesus Christ." How such a 
scene shames the senseless cavils of the skep- 
tic, and puts to flight all the false reasonings of 
vain philosophy ! 

Eaily in the year 1792 Miss More, though 
her own health was extremely feeble, was call- 
ed to witness the last hours of some of her inti- 
mate friends, and she was constrained to say 
with the wise man — " that it is better to go to 
the house of mourning than to the house of 
feasting." The late Dr. Home, bishop of Nor- 
wich, one of her most esteemed correspondents, 
was lying ill at Bath, and during one of her 
visits to that place breathed his last. She was 
with him several times during her short stay, 
and in one of her letters she says, " He was so 
much better a few days ago that I was expect- 
ing he would have sent for me to sit with him 



MEMOIR 01' HANNAH MORE. 57 

in the evening ; but Patty called yesterday and 
found him actually dying. He had just received 
the sacrament with his family with extraordinary 
devotion. Every word he uttered, every text he 
repeated, consisted of praise and the mgst de- 
vout thankfulness. He took leave of all sepa- 
rately; exhorted and blessed them. He calmly 
pronounced the words, " Blessed Jesus," stretch- 
ed himself out and expired with the utmost tran- 
quillity. We ought to rejoice that he is released 
from a painful and burdensome body; and sure- 
ly we do rejoice that his death was so consistent 
with his life, and that he honoured his Christian 
profession with his dying breath. How wise, 
how pleasant, and how good he was, we shall 
often remember." 

On the death of the bishop, his widow came 
and resided with Miss More for some time, and 
her efforts to soothe the mind of her disconsolate 
and bereaved friend were incessant. But while 
thus endeavouring to dispense comfort to one of 
her afflicted friends, she was called to share in 
the toils and sorrows of another. In a letter to 
Mrs. Kennicott she says : — " You heard me 
speak, I think, of two young ladies of uncom- 
mon parts and piety, cousins to Mrs. Wilber- 
force, settled at Bath, quite alone in a Icdging, 
of course wanting friendship and attention. One 
of these has been dying eighteen days, to all 
appearance ; but in a manner more truly heroic 
and pious than any thing of the kind I ever wit- 
nessed. She talks of her departure constantly, 
and with pleasure ; and though when in health 



68 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

she was remarkably diffident and timid, she now 
exhorts and instructs all who come near her ; 
and tells them what a wretched state she would 
now be in if she had nothing better in which to 
trust than her own righteousness." 

As this young lady had only her sister to 
attend her, Miss More, though herself quite 
unwell, offered her assistance, and was almost 
constantly at the bed-side of the amiable and 
dying girl, whose faith seemed to strengthen 
just in proportion as she drew near to the gates 
of death. " In the night on which she died," 
•says Miss More, " she called us all about her, 
and with an energy of spirit quite unlike her- 
self she cried out in an animated tone, ' Be 
witness, all of you, that I bear my dying testi- 
mony to the truth of my Christian profession. 
I am divinely supported, and have almost a 
foretaste of heaven ! Oh ! this is not pain but 
pleasure!'" Soon after she experienced great 
anguish of body, during which she often cried 
out, "let patience have its perfect work. Though 
he slay me, yet will I trust in him : thy will, 
not mine, be done." In this happy frame of 
mind died one " who," says Miss More, •' was 
so shy, reserved, cold, and hesitating in her 
natural manner, that few ever discovered what 
a close intimacy enabled me to discover — a 
most accomplished mind hidden under a thick 
veil of humility." 

These instructive death-bed scenes were not 
lost on such a tender sensitive mind as that 
of Hannah More, and tended still further to 



MEMOIR OF HAXNAH MORE. 59 

deepen that piety which now influenced every 
act of her life. " I am not afraid," she says, 
" that these scenes will affect me too much ; 
my fear is that the impression may escape be- 
fore it has wrought its full benefit upon the 
soul." For some time her attention was occu- 
pied in doing what she could to comfort the 
bereaved, for vi^hich purpose the house of her 
sisters, where she was staying, was opened for 
their reception, and where they received every 
attention which the most enlarged Christian 
benevolence could bestow. 

Sinae Miss More had become so actively 
engaged in her schemes of benevolence at 
home, her visits to London had been much less 
frequent than before. We find her, however, 
in the spring of this year, again among her 
London frienjis, but still actively employed in 
every work of charity and kindness. She had 
scarcely arrived when she was engaged with 
all her soul in rescuing a young heiress who 
had been decoyed from school by an unprin- 
cipled man at the age of only fourteen years. 
Next we find her administering to the wants 
of De Lolme, the author of a well known trea- 
tise on the English Constitution, who by his 
extravagance had fallen into prison. A day or 
two after her sympathies were enlisted in be- 
half of an unhappy girl who had attempted t(» 
drown herself. 

On her return she spent several days at Ful- 
ham with the bishop of London, who urged her 
to write some tracts calculated to counteract 



60 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

the influence of French infideUty, the infection 
of which was spreading rapidly through the 
united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 
In accordance with the wishes of her friend 
she immediately commenced a tract for this 
purpose, which was written hastily in the form 
of a dialogue, and entitled " Village Politics." 
In order the more effectually to conceal the 
authorship, she sent it to another publisher by 
the vame of Rivington, with orders to print it 
without her name. This work which she va- 
lued but little, and which she says, " on one 
sick day I scribbled, and the very next njorning 
sent off to Rivington's" for publication, proved 
to be an invaluable tract, and was read with 
eagerness by all ranks of people, although it 
was designed only for the lower classes. The 
sale was rapid and extensive, and hundreds 
were bought up and distributed by different 
gentlemen in their own neighbourhood. Bishop 
Porteus was delighted with it. " ' Village Poli- 
tics,'" he writes, "is universally extolled: it has 
been read and greatly admired at Windsor, and 
its fame is spreading rapidly over all parts of 
the kingdom. Mr. Cambridge. says that Swift 
could not have done better. I am perfectly of 
that opinion ; it is a master-piece of its kind. 
I congratulate myself on having drawn out a 
new talent in you, and on having thereby done 
much good to my country." 

This excellent prelate, having been thus suc- 
cessful in bringing out Miss More on this im- 
portant subject, urged her to continue her la- 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 61 

hours in the same field, and, the more to stimu- 
late her in the work, sent her a copy of M. 
Dupont's speech before the French National 
Convention, in which religion was openly tra- 
duced and deism defended. The result of this 
appeal was an excellent pamphlet, entitled, 
" Remarks on the Speech of M. Dupont on the 
Subject of Religion and Public Education," pre- 
fixed to which was an address in behalf of the 
French emigrant clergy, who had been driven, 
destitute and friendless, from their homes and 
firesides to seek an asylum on the more tole- 
rant shores of Great Britain, and to whom the 
profits of her work, amounting to nearly $1000, 
were consecrated. 

" In this spirited, well-vi^ritten pamphlet," 
says Mr. Taylor, one of her biographers, " the 
absurdity, wickedness, and pernicious tendency 
of atheism are clearly depicted. Infidelity is 
not openly attacked, but is exhibited as the 
hideous parent of vices the most gigantic, ut- 
terly barren of all that is good, richly produc- 
tive of unmitigated, universal evil. It is a con- 
cise, but noble defence of Christianity, well 
worthy, at any time, of an attentive perusal ; but 
more especially serviceable at the time of its 
appearance, when it operated as a powerful — 
perhaps the most powerful — check to that wild, 
reckless spirit of atheistic freedom, misnamed 
liberty, which threatened then to produce the 
same frightful havoc in England as it had al- 
ready produced in France." 

But, although it was written in an amiable. 



62 MEMOIR OF HANNAH 3I0RE. 

Christian spirit, without harshness, and without 
any design to arouse opposition, it was severe- 
ly attacked by three individuals : " The first 
accused me," she says, " of openly opposing 
God's vengeance against popery, by wickedly 
wishing that the French priests should not be 
starved when it was God's will that they should 
be : the second undertakes the defence of Du- 
pont and justifies his principles : the third de- 
clares that I am a favourer of the old popish 
massacres." 

The reasons which, in her address, she as- 
signs for desiring to alleviate the condition of 
the exiled Catholic clergy, should have screen- 
ed her from all attacks on that score. She 
justly says : " Christian charity is of no party. 
We plead not for their faith, but for their 
wants ;" and adds, " if we wish for proselytes, 
who knows but this may be the first step to- 
ward their conversion, if we show them the 
purity of our religion by the beneficence of our 
actions ?" 

But the attacks made upon Miss More's 
works never gave her any uneasiness. In- 
stead of returning railing for railing she always 
endeavoured to extract from them something to 
profit her and keep her humble. " All cen- 
sure," she says, " is profitable ; for, if one does 
not happen to deserve it for the thing in ques- 
tion, it makes one look inio one's self; and my 
mind is of such a make, that my chief danger 
lies, not in abuse, but in flattery." If, how- 
ever, she had needed the support of her friends, 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 63 

they stood ready to give it. Lord Orford, (late 
Horace Walpole,) says, in a letter to her, " Let 
the vile abuse vented against you be balm to 
your mind. Your writings must have done 
great service when they have so much pro- 
voked the enemy. All, who have any religion 
or principle, must revere your name. Who 
would not be hated by Duponts and Dantons ? 
and, if abhorrence of atheism implies popery, 
reckon it a compliment to be called papist ?" 

Notwithstanding these occasional efforts of 
her pen, the chief object of Miss More's atten- 
tion was still the improvement of the lower 
classes, by the means which she had already 
employed with so much success ; and, during 
the year 1793, she formed the project of pub- 
lishing, as an immediate auxiliary to her la- 
bours, a cheap " Monthly Repository," the ob- 
ject of which was to diffuse useful and reli- 
gious knowledge more generally among the 
poor. Scarcely was the idea suggested to her 
mind before she set about putting it into execu- 
tion. It was printed, under her sole superintend- 
ence, at Bath, and immediately acquired an im- 
mense circulation ; so great, indeed, that the 
press could scarcely supply the requisite num- 
ber of copies,- the sale of which amounted, in 
the first year, to no less than two millions. 

She wrote to all her literary friends, desiring 
contributions ; but most of the articles were the 
production of her own pen. Among them were 
" The Tale of the Shepherd of Salisbury 
Plain," " The Two Wealthy Farmers," "The 



64 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

Two Shoemakers," " Betty Brown, the Orange 
Girl," " Black Giles, the Poacher," " Mr. Fan- 
torn the Infidel, and his Servants," " Hester 
Wilmot," together with all the allegories. In- 
dustry and economy were constantly inculcated 
in its pages, and it was enriched with sound 
and wholesome information on all subjects like- 
ly to be of advantage to the poor. 

That this work was of immense importance 
and did much toward counteracting the theo- 
retical follies of the day, the natural offspring 
of the French philosophy ; and that its influ- 
ence was felt in bettering the condition of the 
poor, by correcting their morals, stimulating 
their industry, and teaching them economy, is 
the universal testimony of those who best 
know. In it we behold a mind fitted for the 
higher walks of literature, endowed to shine in 
the loftier flights of poetry or fiction, stooping 
to be merely useful, bending its attention to the 
noble effort of bettering the condition of the 
poor, who could neither recompense her with 
money nor crown her with honours. " My ca- 
reer," she says, *' is not, indeed, a very brilliant 
one ; but I feel that the value of a thing lies 
much more in its usefulness than in its splen- 
dour, that I have a notion I should derive moro 
benefit from being able to lower the price of 
bread,- than from having written the ' Iliad. " 
" But," she adds, " let me not forget to do 
homage to real talents, for which I still retain 
something of my ancient kindness." 

It was this noble principle that guided all 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 69 

her actions ; and her readiness always to em^ 
ploy her time or her talents in doing good, jnay be 
further illustrated by a little incident which hap- 
pened about this time. The colliers in the neigh- 
bourhood of Bath, for some cause which we 
do not know, had become greatly excited and 
dissatisfied, and had formed a coalition for the 
purpose of revolt, which must have been at- 
tended with very unpleasant consequences. 
Her benevolent genius immediately suggested 
that a sprightly ballad, in which the evils of re- 
volt were exposed, might meet the ear and pre- 
vent the evil. Accordingly she set about the 
work, and her poem, which was entitled " The 
Revolt," contained such genuine touches of hu- 
mour on the subject that its circulation among 
the disaffected put a complete stop to their 
plans. Such was the readiness with which 
ihis excellent woman turned her gifted mind to 
the advantage of her species. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Her religious activit)' — Visit to the duchess of Gloucester 
— Meeting with Lord Orford — Present from Lord Orford — 
Attention to her schools and " Repository Tracts" — Death of 
Lord Orford — Increased attention to religion^ — Present of 
Lord Orford's work — Dangerously injured by a fall — " Re- 
pository Tracts" discontinued — Commences another school 
— Opposition. * 

The private journal of Miss More, du- 
ring the year 1794, exhibits her indefatigable 
exertions to promote every scheme of benevo- 
5 



66 MEMOIR OF HANxNAH MORE. 

lence which was likely to result in the 
good of mankind ; and it also shows her deep 
and growing piety. We find her feasting her 
pupils, a thousand at a time, spending her Sun- 
days among them, dispensing to them reli- 
gious instruction, writing continually, in the in- 
tervals of her more active labours, for her " Re- 
pository Tracts," reproving the fashionable 
follies of her friends in " high places," and 
directing the broken-hearted to the word of life, 
for the balm to heal all their sorrows. 

Early in 1795 she visited London, where she 
maintained her Christian firmness and dignity 
among the great, and, on every proper occasion, 
bore her testimony in favour of the doctrines of 
vital piety, as taught by our Lord and his apos- 
tles. Writing to her sister she says : " I paid 
my visit to Gloucester house yesterday. Lady 
Waldegrave presented me to the duchess. 
We had two hours of solid, rational, religious 
conversation. It would be too little to say, 
that the behaviour of the duchess is gracious in 
the extreme. She behaved to me with the af- 
fectionate familiarity of an equal ; and, though 
I took the opportunity of saying stronger things 
of a religious kind than, perhaps, she had ever 
heard, she bore it better than any person I ever 
conversed with, and seemed not offended at the 
«trictness of the gospel." 

With her friend, Lord Orford, she was less 
successful. " He ralUed me," she writes, " for 
what he called the ill-natured strictness of my 
tracts : and talked , foolishly enough, of the cru 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 67 

elty of making the poor spend so much time in 
reading books. 1 recommended him, and the 
ladies present, to read ' Law's Serious Call :' 
I told them that it was a book that their favour- 
ite, Gibbon, had highly praised ; and, moreover, 
that Law had been Gibbon's tutor in early 
life." " Was there ever," she adds, " such a 
contrast between tutor and pupil ?" 

It seems likely that, notwithstanding the ap- 
parent opposition of Lord Orford to the strict- 
ness of her principles, at this time, he afterward 
better appreciated them, and perhaps profited 
by the book which she had thus recommended 
to his attention ; for, during an attack of illness, 
a short time after, he expressed a regret for 
having reproached her for her piety, with the 
hope that she would forgive him, and, on his re- 
covery, transmitted her a copy of Bishop Wil- 
son's Bible, elegantly bound, in three quarto 
volumes. Upon it was this inscription : — 

TO HIS EXCELLENT FRIEND, 

MISS HANNAH MORE, 
THIS BOOK, 

WHICH HE KNOWS TO BE THE DEAREST OBJECT 

.OF HER STUDY, 

AND BY WHICH, 

TO THE GREAT COMFORT AND RELIEF 

OF NUMBERLESS AFFLICTED AND DISTRESSED 

INDIVIDUALS, 

SHE HAS PROFITED, 

BEYOND ANY PERSON WITH WHOM HE IS 

ACQUAINTED, 



68 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

IS OFFERED AS A MARK OF HIS ESTEEM AND 

GRATITUDE, 
BY HER SINCERE AND OBLIGED HUMBLE SERVANT, 

HORACE, 

EARL OF ORFORD, 
1795. 

This gratifying testimonial of the continued 
kindness and good will of her friend, instead of 
exciting her vanity, seems to have produced an 
effect directly opposite. " O," said she, in a 
letter to her sister, " O, that he would himself 
study this blessed book, to which, in his most 
flattering inscription, he attributes my having 
done far more good than is true." " Alas !" she 
adds, " when I receive these undue compli- 
ments, I am ready to answer with my old friend 
Johnson, ' Sir, 1 am a miserable sinner !' " 

During the summer she added another school 
to her charge, which was undertaken at the 
earnest request of the resident clergyman and 
magistrate. It was in a most benighted region, 
and the opening prospects were not the most 
flattering. " Several of the grown-up youths," 
she says, " had been tried at the late assizes ; 
three were the children of a person lately con- 
demned : many thieves, all ignorant, profane, 
vicious, beyond belief. Of this banditti we 
have admitted nearly two hundred ; and, when 
the clergyman saw these creatures kneeling 
round us, whom he had seldom seen but in the 
discharge of his magisterial duties, to commit, 
or punish, he burst into tears. I can do them 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. G9 

Init little good, I fear, but the grace of God can 
do all." 

The interest which she and her sisters took 
in these labours of love is truly remarkable. In 
a letter to Mr. Wilberforce, acknowledging a 
sum of money which he had appropriated for 
distribution among her poor, in consequence of 
the severity of the winter, she says, " I joyfully 
accept the honourable office of your almoner, on 
condition that you will find fault with, and di- 
i*ect me, with as little scruple as I shall have in 
disposing of your money. Patty is very proud 
of being admitted into the confederacy ; but I 
like my dignity too well to allow her to be more 
than vice-queen. What a comfort I feel in 
looking round on these starving and half-naked 
multitudes, to think that, by your liberality, 
many of them may be fed and clothed ; and, O ! 
U but one soul is rescued from eternal misery, 
how may we rejoice over it in another state, 
when, perhaps, it may make no small part of 
our felicity that our frien*dship was turned to 
some useful account, in advancing the good of 
others ; and, as I humbly presume to hope, in 
preparing ourselves for that life which shall 
have no end." 

In 1796 Miss More, the better to fit her la- 
bours to the condition of the poor, brought out 
two editions of her " Repository Tracts :" one, 
on superior paper, for the rich ; and one, very 
common, for distribution ; by which means she 
hoped more effectually to counteract the sedi- 
tious and skeptical publications with which the 



70 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

country was inundated. It was her object to 
make it so exceeding!)^ cheap that it might be 
read by all, and especially that it might find its 
way wherever the infidel trash of the hawkers 
(the pedlars) had penetrated. In this desigti 
she seems, in a measure, to have been success- 
ful. At least the enemies of Christianity felt 
her power, and attacked her on all sides. vShe 
was also attacked by different political factions. 
This, however, she little regarded, and, accord- 
ing to her settled practice, bore it all in silence. 
Speaking of it, in one of her letters, she says : 
" May you and I be tempted, neither by abuse 
nor flattery, to depart from that candour and 
that tolerating spirit, which make so necessary 
a part of the Christian character, and which, I 
trust, will stand us in stead when all petty 
names of party shall be done away, and when 
charity shall be all in all." 

During the winter of 1796 Miss More again 
visited London, calling, as usual, upon " her 
royal highness," the*duchess of Gloucester, and 
endeavouring to draw her mind toward the mild 
precepts of the gospel. In the following spring- 
she repeated her visit to the metropolis, and, 
while there, heard of the death of Lord Orford, 
for whom she had long cherished an ardeni 
friendship. Writing to her sister she refers to 
the event in language which exhibits the deep 
concern which she ielt for his spiritual welfare. 
" Poor Lord Orford !" she says, " I could not 
help mourning for him. Twenty years' un- 
clouded kindness and pleasant correspondence 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 7^ 

cannot be given up without emotion. I am not 
sorry, now, that I never flinched from any of 
his ridicule, or attacks, or suffered them to pass 
without rebuke. At our last meeting 1 made 
him promise to buy ' Law's Serious Call.' His 
playful wit, his various knowledge, his polished 
manners, alas I what avail they now ? The 
most serious thoughts are awakened. ' O, that 
he had known and believed the things which 
belonged to his peace.' " 

Her visits to the duchess of Gloucester af- 
forded her much satisfaction. " By far the 
most interesting evening," she says, " that 1 
have passed in town, was at Gloucester house, 
where I have l^een twice. It would make 
some folks smile to know that we read the 
epistle to the Ephesians, commenting upon it 
as we proceeded." The duchess was anxious 
for religious knowledge, and Miss More de- 
lighted in leading her to the " fountain opened 
in the house of David." The correspondence 
between them was long kept up, and abounded 
in interest. 

Her mind continued to be more and more 
absorbed in the things of religion. On the first 
day of the year 1798, while in London, she 
made a new dedication of herself to God. 
" Having," she says, in her journal, " obtained 
help of God, I continue to this day. Let me 
now dedicate myself to him with a more entire 
surrender than I have ever made. I resolve, 
by his grace, to be more watchful over my tem- 
per and thoughts ; not to speak harshly ; to in- 



72 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

dulge in no vain, idle, resentful, impatient, 
worldly imaginations ; to strive after closer 
communion with God ; to let no hour pass 
without lifting up my heart to him, through 
Christ ; not to let a day pass without some 
thoughts of death ; to ask myself, every night 
when I lie down, am I fit to die ? to labour to 
do and to suffer the whole will of God, and to 
restrain all undue anxiety by casting myself on 
God in Christ." Soon after she again writes, 
" I indulge too frequently in the thought, how 
much belter I might be had I fewer interrup- 
tions, more opportunities of religious improve- 
ment, more pious friends, less worldly compa- 
ny. There is great self-dec^tion in all this. 
The question ought rather to be, Do I make the 
most of my time ? Lord assist me so to do, 
and help me to bear patiently what I dislike." 

This rigid self-inspection — this keen sense 
of the value of time — this constant watchful- 
ness over her thoughts, words, and actions — ex- 
hibits the workings of a well-disciplined mind 
— of a conscience " quick as the apple of an 
eye" — and a heart burning with a deep and ar- 
dent desire after higher spiritual attainments. 
Her remarks on the pulpit efforts of some of the 
London clergy, who laboured more after ele- 
gance of diction, and a graceful, florid style, 
than for the salvation of souls, are also evidence 
to the same point. " Heard — '— preach," she 
says, " elegant language — earnest and bold ; 
but nothing to the heart ; no food for perishing 
sinners. Lord, send more labourers into thy 



MEMOIR OF HANxVAH MORE. 73 

vineyard ! Increase the number of those who 
preach Jesus Christ, and salvation through him 
only." 

On receiving a present of Lord Orford's 
work, which, much against her wish, had been 
embellished with her portrait, accompanied with 
many flattering remarks, she says, " Lord keep 
me from self-sufficiency ; and humble mc under 
a deep sense of the emptiness of earthly ho- 
nours. Lord Orford had all this world could 
give ; great, witty, briUiant ; of how little use 
are these things to him now ! ' Blessed are 
the pure in heart for they shall see God.' 
Grant me this purity, and an utter indifference 
to time, and deadness to the world." 
■ During the summer, while attending one of 
her schools, she caught a severe cold by re- 
maining too long in a damp, unfinished room, 
and was soon after attacked severely with pain 
in her head, which continued several days. In 
this condition she met with an accident which 
had nearly proved fatal. " On Monday," she 
says, " being left alone, I fell from the place 
where I was sitting in a fainting fit. I dashed 
my face against the corner of a stone wall, and 
lay a long time without any signs of life. My 
sisters found me in a posture which must soon 
have suffocated me, with ray face frightfully 
disfigured, and the floor sprinkled with blood. 
There was a strong contest between life and 
death, but it pleased my merciful God to raise 
me up. It was a good while before I had any 
clear ideas, but felt a sort of stupid serenity ; 



74 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

no emotion, but a general feeling that I had not 
done enough for God ; and a deep concern to 
know what poor Patty would do." The effects 
of this illness continued many weeks, and we 
find in her journal and letters frequent allusions 
to it, " Lord," she says, " sanctify pain to me ; 
make me as willing to suffer thy will as to do it." 

In the autumn of this year she discontinued 
her " Repository Tracts," which had now occu- 
pied a great share of her attention for about 
three years, and which had a sale so extraordi- 
nary that they had literally been distributed all 
over the kingdom. Alluding to the completion 
of this work in her journal, she says : — " Bless 
the Lord, O my soul, that I have been spared 
to accomplish this work. Do thou, Lord, 
bless and prosper it to the good of many, and if 
it do good, may I give thee the glory, and take 
to myself the shame of its defects." 

Her health continued so bad that, for a sea- 
son, she was obliged to retire to Bath ; but 
soon returned again to her village labours, 
which she continued through much suffering 
and pain. She had lately commenced a school 
in a parish thirty miles from Cowslip Green, 
where, in addition to the great distance, and 
the ordinary difficulties of the undertaking, her 
cares and anxieties were much heightened by 
violent opposition. This she describes in one 
of her letters with her accustomed spirit, appa- 
rently not the least disheartened by a circum- 
stance which would have put a fatal check to 
the work in the hands of almost any other person. 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 75 

" The principal adversary," she says, " is a 
farmer of jGIOOO sterhng a year. He has la- 
bored to ruin the poor curate, for favouring our 
cause, and declares that he shall never more 
have a workman that will obey him. But in 
spite of this hostility, which far exceeded any 
thing of the kind I ever met with, I am building 
a house, and taking up things on a large scale ; 
so that you must not be surprised if I get into 
jail for debt. Providence, however, I trust, 
will carry me through the difficulties of this 
new undertaking. Already between three and 
four hundred are under a course of instruction. 
The worst part of the story is, that thirty miles 
is too great a distance these short days ; and 
when we get there our house has neither doors 
nor windows ; but if we live till next summer 
things will mend, and in so precarious a world 
as the present a winter is not to be lost." 

This opposition was carried on with great 
rancour ; and the more effectually to bring her 
into disrepute, and destroy her influence, her 
enemies prepared and published a history of 
her life, which was interspersed with false and 
detracting statements, and silly incidents. All 
this, .however, did not damp her ardour, and 
she continued to go on successfully, regardless 
of the persecution she had to endure, and with- 
out comment or reply. This was undoubtedly 
her wisest course, and enabled her to go through 
a long life of public labours in the most respon- 
sible undertakings with comparatively few ene- 
mies, and without contention. 



76 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 



CHAPTER IX. 

'Strictures on Female Education" — Testimonials of its 
worth — Clianicter of the work — Public commendation of 
the bishop of London — Meets with great opposition fronc 
the curate of Blagdon — Persecution — Abandons one of hei 
schools — Vindication of her character — Final triuaiph. 

NoTWiTHSTANDiiNG Miss More's frequent 
turns of illness, and the arduous labours of su- 
perintending her parish schools, which now 
embodied nearly two thousand i^ersons of differ- 
ent ages, and extended over an area of thirty or 
forty miles, she did not entirely neglect her 
pen. During the intervals of her ill health she 
had employed herself in writing a work which 
she sent to press early in the year 1799, under 
the title of " Strictures on the Modern System 
of Female Education," and which proved to be 
one of the most powerful engines which she 
ever employed against the fashionable foUies 
of her time. 

This admirable book met with the same kind 
reception from the public which her former pro- 
ductions had received. One of her correspond- 
ents, soon after its publication, estimated that it 
had been read by fifty thousand persons. She 
received from all quarters the most flattering 
testimonials of its worth, and had at least the 
gratification to know that it was extensively 
read among those classes for whose benefit in 
parucular it had been written. One of her cor- 
respondents well observes : — " The subjects of 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 77 

your several chapters are admirabh^ chosen, 
and treated with a force of sentiment and lan- 
guage unequalled since the death of our great 
and pious Johnson. The vices, follies, and 
affectations of the times, how well described ! 
Religion, how well understood and recom- 
mended !" The bishop of Llandaff says : — 
" Your publication is calculated to do much 
good. I have put it with great satisfaction into 
the hands of my daughters." The Rev. Mr. 
Newton, in his meek manner, thus expresses 
his approbation of it : — " I thank the Lord for 
disposing and enabling you to write it ; and my 
heart prays that it may be much read, and that 
the blessing of the Lord may accompany the 
perusal." Mr. Cecil declared it to be " one of 
the most perfect works in all its parts that any 
century or country has produced. 

That this excellent volume was not, however, 
valued above its deserts, we think all will 
acknowledge who have paid any attention to its 
instructive pages. She begins by describing 
the influence of female manners on society, in 
a way well calculated to stir up the attention of 
the reader, and then goes on to the importance 
of the subject of which she is about to treat. 
" If," she says, " the great business of education 
be to impart right ideas, to communicate useful 
knowledge, to form a correct taste and a sound 
judgment, to resist evil propensities, and, above 
all, to seize the favourable season for infusing 
principles and confirming habits ; if education 
be a school to fit us for life, and life be a school 



78 MEMOIR OF HANx\AH MORE. 

to fit US for eternity, it may then be worth in- 
quiring how far these ends are hkely to be 
effected by the prevailing system." 

Well would it be if these great starting points 
were always recognized in our systems of edu- 
cation : if the efforts of the teacher, the guardi- 
an, or the parent were directed to belter the 
heart, and implant a store of virtuous principles, 
to fortify it against the attacks of vice and the 
allurements of fashion and folly. " But, forget- 
ting this," as Miss More well remarks, " do we 
not seem to educate our daughters exclusively 
for the transient period of youth, when it is to 
mature life that we ought to advert ? Do we 
not educate them for a crowd, forgetting that 
they are to live at home ? for the world and not 
for themselves ? for time and not for eternity ? 
Should we not reflect that it is our business to 
form Christians, at least as far as we have the 
power to do this, by the use of means ? that we 
have to edu(?ate, not only rational, but account- 
able beings ? Remembering this, should we 
not be solicitous to let our daughters learn of 
the well-taught, and associate with the well- 
bred ? In training them should we not careful- 
ly cultivate intellect, implant religion, and che- 
rish modesty? Then, whatever is engaging in 
manners would be the natural result of what- 
ever is just in sentiment and correct in princi- 
ple : softness would grow out of humility, and 
external delicacy would spring out of purity of 
heart ; then the decorums, the proprieties, the 
elegancies, and even the graces, as far as they 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 79 

are simple, pure, and honest, would follow as an 
almost inevitable result," 

Miss More treats with just severity the idea 
of making mere accomplishments the chief ob- 
ject of education. " Does it," she asks, " seem 
to be the true end of education to make women 
dancers, singers, players, painters, sculptors, 
gilders, varnishers, engravers, embroiderers ?" 
Such accomplishments, if so they may be 
'called, have been forced upon the young by 
their ;nisguided parents, with as much zeal as 
though they were to be called into requisition 
every day of their lives, while things really im- 
portant are totally neglected. This abuse could 
not escape the attention of a writer so observ- 
ing as Miss More, and she enlarges on it with 
peculiar force and clearness. 

" The station of ladies," she says, " to which 
the bent of their instruction should be turned, is 
that of daughters, wives, mothers, and mis- 
tresses of families : they should be, therefore, 
trained with a view to these several conditions, 
and be furnished with a stock of ideas and prin- 
ciples, qualifications and habits, ready to be 
applied and appropriated, as occasion may de- 
mand, to each of these respective situations ; 
for, though the arts which merely embellish 
must claim admiration, yet, when a man of 
sense comes to marry, it is a companion he 
wants, not an artist. It is not merely a creature 
who can paint, and play, and sing, and draw, and 
dress, and dance ; it is a being who can comfort 
and counsel him ; who can reason, and reflect, 



80 MEMOIR OF HAXXAH MORE. 

and feel, and judge, and discourse, and discri- 
minate ; one who can assist him in his affairs, 
lighten his cares, soothe his sorrows, purify his 
joys, strengthen his principles, and educate his 
children." 

The great duty, which Miss More so well 
understood, of instructing the poor and allevi- 
ating the hardships of their condition is not for- 
gotten in her work. " The superintendence of 
the poor," she justly observes, " is a noble em- 
ployment for ladies, and one for which they are 
peculiarly fitted ; from their own habits of life, 
they are more intimately acquainted with do- 
mestic wants than the other sex ; and, in cer- 
tain instances of sickness and suffering, pecu- 
liar to their sex, they may be expected to haA'-e 
more s)mipathy. Let rich parents, then, be 
careful to train up their children to supply, by 
individual kindness, those cases of hardship 
which laws cannot reach." 

But, in the brief limits which are allotted to 
us, we cannot give even the most summary view 
of this interesting volume. Miss More every- 
where evinces the most perfect knowledge of 
her subject, and never overlooks, what no good 
system of education ever can overlook, the reli- 
gious culture of the young. She regards time 
as a trust, which is not to be abused — as a ta- 
lent, which is not to be lightly squandered — 
and for the improvement of which, we shall all 
be held accountable. She points out the vices 
into which the youthful mind is apt to be en- 
snared, and the errors of fond parents in allu- 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 81 

ring their children into a love of worldly pride 
and fashion. In short, it is a most useful trea- 
tise, and one which can never be consulted by 
parents or children without benefit. 

Her book, however admirable as it was in 
design and eloquent in execution, did not escape 
without censure. Archdeacon Danbury, a 
friend who had highly approved her former 
works, was greatly dissatisfied with it, on the 
ground of alleged puritanism, fanaticism, and 
Galvanism, and came out with a reply. Miss 
More might, with great ease, have refuted most 
of his positions ; but she chose to remain si- 
lent, thus withholding the fuel which would 
have soon kindled up a glowing controversy. 
The consequence was that his attack was soon 
forgotten, while the strictures will long remain 
to be read and prized. Bishop Porteus, not 
long after, in a charge which he delivered to 
his clergy, thus vindicated her work by his 
sanction, and bore his testimony to the merits, 
not only of this, but of her other productions. 

" The spirit of piety," he says, " excited by 
the productions of many able and excellent wri- 
ters, is certainly very considerable ; but by 
none more than by those of the highly approved 
Miss Hannah More, whose extraordinary and 
versatile talents can equally accommodate them- 
selves to the cottage and the palace ; who, 
while she is diffusing among the lower orders of 
the people an infinity of little religious tracts, cal- 
culated to reform and comfort them in this world 
and to save them in the next, is, at the same 
6 



82 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

time, applying all the powers of a vigorous and 
highly cultivated mind to the instruction, im- 
provement, and delight of the most exalted of 
her own sex, I allude, more particularly, to her 
last work on female education, which contains 
such a fund of good sense, of wholesome coun- 
sel, of sagacious observation, of a knowledge of 
the world and the female heart, of high-toned mo- 
rality and genuine Christian piety — and all this en- 
livened bysuchbrilliancy of wit, such richness of 
imagery, such variety and felicity of allusion — 
such neatness and elegance of diction, as are 
not, I conceive, easily to be found so combined 
and blended together in any other work in the 
English language." 

Soon after the publication of this volume Miss 
More was called to endure trials far mere se 
vere than any which she had yet suffered. 
The great prosperity of her schools, and the 
sensible effect which they had produced, in re- 
forming and taming the rude and refractory, by 
bringing them under the mild and peaceful in- 
fluences of the gospel, had induced the curate 
of Blagdon (Mr. Bere) to ask the establishment 
of a school in his parish. The request was, at 
first, denied. Miss More assured the appli- 
cant that neither her health, her time, nor her 
purse, would allow her to think of further en- 
larging her labours. The application was, how- 
ever, renewed by a deputation from the church- 
wardens and overseers of the parish, and was 
pressed with such earnestness, that she was at 
length induced to waive her objections ; and, 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 83 

removing from one of her other schools an ap- 
proved teacher, a rapid improvement soon re- 
warded her efforts. The usual Sunday read- 
ings were instituted — the poor adults as well as 
children resorted to thcin in crowds — the pa- 
rish officers expressed their delight at the im- 
proved aspect of the place — and, for two or 
three year?, things went on so well that the 
courts, for some time, were left " without pro- 
secutor or prisoners — plaintiff or defendant." 

But, in the midst of these very pleasing re- 
sults, while Miss More was absent, she received 
from the curate, Mr. Bere, a letter, charging the 
schoolmaster with irregularities and disaffection 
to the Church, on account of some religious 
meetings ^which he had held with his pupils, 
and demanded his immediate dismission. She 
assured him, by letter, that the subject should 
have her early attention, immediately on her re- 
turn ; but this assurance was not satisfactory, 
and Mr. Bere wrote again, still more importu- 
nately, to the same purpose. Miss More, hav- 
ing great confidence in the master, did not 
think it right to dismiss him without a hearing ; 
but, that the curate might have no just cause of 
complaint, she consented to have the affair set- 
tled, in her absence, by referring it to a neigh- 
bouring magistrate of Mr. Bere's acquaintance. 
But, greatly to her surprise, the curate posi- 
tively refused; reiterating his demand solely on 
the grounds of his own representation. Under 
these circumstances she did not see fit to comply 
with his demand ; but gave orders that the of- 



84 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

• 

fensive meetings, which the master had held, 
should be immediately discontinued. 

From this time Mr. Bere became her most 
bitter and relentless foe. He charged her with 
fanaticism, with Calvinism, with Methodism, 
with disaffection to the Church, and stirred up 
a violent opposition against her, not only in his 
own neighbourhood, but throughout the coun- 
try. It seemed to be his object to strike at and 
destroy her influence and to break up all her 
schools. Opposition from such a quarter was 
no light affair : the curate soon formed around 
him a party which, under the sanction of the 
Church, carried its persecution to the pitch of 
madness. Pamphlet after pamphlet was issued 
against her, containing the most fals^ and mali- 
cious accusations, and representing her as 
guilty of all sorts of fanatical practices — from 
which no one on earth was ever more free — of 
teaching "heresy and sedition;" and, in one 
of the principal ones, it is asserted that her 
writings ought to he burned hy the common hang- 
man. The worst of all was that the bishop of 
the diocess (Dr. Bradon) had been so far influ- 
enced by all these misrepresentations, as to 
take part, in some measure, with the curate and 
to desire that the master should be dismissed. 

Under these circumstances Miss More thought 
it prudent to break up the school ; which was 
accordingly done, but without disarming the 
opposition which was levelled against her. Af- 
terward she addressed a long letter to the 
bishop, taking a full view of the persecutions 



MEMOIR OF IIANXAII MORE. 85 

which she had suffered, and explaining the mo- 
tives which had influenced her throughout. 
" It is with deep regret," she says, " that I find 
myself compelled to trouble your lordship with 
this letter, though your known liberality gives 
me more courage in taking a step which, in 
any case, I should feel it my duty to take. For, 
however firm my resolution has been, never to 
answer any of the calumnies under which I 
have been so long suffering, yet, to your lord- 
ship, as my diocesan, I feel myself accountable 
for my conduct, attacked, as it has been, with a 
wantonness of cruelty, which, in civilized 
places, few persons, especially of my sex, have 
been called to suffer." 

These reasons for entering into an explana- 
tion of her conduct to the bishop, are such as 
will strike the reader with due weight. Her 
admirable letter contains a clear exposition of 
the conspiracy against her, and must have pro- 
duced a powerful effect upon his mind. How 
far she was from any thing like insubordination 
or disaffection to the Church, may be learned by 
the concluding paragraph of this very able let- 
ter. " And now, my lord," she says, " I come 
to what has been the ultimate object of this too 
tedious letter — a request to know what is your 
lordship's pleasure ? I have too high an 
opinion of your wisdom and candour to suspect 
the equity of your determination. I know too 
well what I owe to the station you fill, to dispute 
your authority or to oppose your commands. If 
it be your will that my remaining schools shaU 



86 MEMOIR OF IIANNA-H MORE. 

be abolished, I may lament your decision, but I 
will obey it. If 1 be not permitted to employ 
the short remnant of my life in being, in any 
small measure or degree, actively useful, I will, 
at least, set my accusers an example of obe- 
dience to those superiors whom the providence 
of God has set over me, and whom, next to 
him, I am bound to obey." 

The bishop could not resist the plain state- 
ments and candid delineations of fact contained 
in this convincing letter. His reply was kind 
in the extreme ; her schools were continued, 
and he became more decidedly her friend. But 
so long buffeting this sea of troubles had greatly 
worn upon her health and spirits, and it was 
many months before she entirely recovered her 
native elasticity of mind. In a letter to Mr, 
Wilberforce she says : — " In Blagdon is still a 
voice heard ; lamentation and mourning ; and 
at Cowslip Green Rachel is still weeping for 
her children, and refuses to be comforted, be- 
cause they are not instructed. This heavy 
blow has almost bowed me to the ground, 
though I doubt not but that He who can bring 
real good out of much seeming evil, will event- 
ually turn this shocking business to his glory." 
And again she writes, " My wounds are still 
fresh, and want mjuch wine and oil ; this your 
kind letters never fail to administer ; but I 
strive to look for higher and better consolations, 
and that these may be granted me, I am per- 
suaded I have your prayers." 

What a consolation is religion under such 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 87 

severe trials ! To know that amidst all the 
scoffs of the world we have a " friend that 
sticketh closer than a brother," an advocate 
who is touched with the feeling of our infirmi- 
ties, robs calumny at once of half its stings. 
This consolation Miss More enjoyed, and she 
was not disappointed in putting her trust in him 
" who knows our frame, who remembers that 
we are but dust." A very short period served 
to bring all her enemies into disgrace, and to 
elevate her still higher in the affections of the 
pubHc. Unanswered slander dies for want of 
food; a life of virtue vindicates itself; and 
purity of motive seldom fails to be finally appre- 
ciated. At least it was so in the case of Miss 
More. Her friends took up her cause with an 
earnestness which abashed all opposition. The 
neighbouring clergy made a public declara- 
tion in her favour, and the great kindness and 
attention which she soon received from all 
quarters silenced the tongue of slander. " I 
cannot," says Martha, writing to one of her sis- 
ters from Fulham palace, " express to you the 
very marked attentions which are paid to Han- 
nah from all ranks and descriptions of people ; 
they say such a persecution of such a woman 
is unexampled. Sunday, as we were sitting at 
breakfast, an old lady was announced ; many rose 
to greet her, but she hobbled through them all to 
Hannah, whom she fervently kissed ; I presently 
found it was Lady Elgin." Thus was the malice 
of her foes turned into blessings on her head. 



88 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 



CHAPTER X 

Barley Wood — Publishes a complete edition of her 
works — Sickness — State of her mind — Publishes "-HiBta 
toward Forming the Character of a Young Princess" — Its 
character — New attacks of ilbiess. 

Miss More had been for some time desirous 
of removing^ into a house the dimensions of 
which should be better suited to that hospitality 
which her large circle of friends now enjoined ; 
and a piece of ground having been offered her 
about 3 mile from Cowslip Green, which was 
singularly picturesque and beautiful, and well 
located for a dwelling, she concluded to pur- 
chase it : and immediately set about erecting a 
comfortable mansion, upon which she bestowed 
much taste, and formed around it a delightful 
territory, planted and disposed to suit thai love 
of rural scenes which she always manifested 
Miss More took possession of her new abode 
in 1802, and her sisters being much delighted 
with the spot, and finding the building suffi- 
ciently ample for their accommodation, disposed 
of their house at Bath, and took up their resi- 
dence with Hannah, at Barley Wood. 

Miss More had always longed for a retired 
spot where her intercourse with the world 
would be but limited, and where she could in 
quiet enjoy her solitude ; such she had hoped 
to find Cowslip Green. But retirement to one 
of her talents and social disposition was utterly 
impossible. The world flowed in upon her 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 89 

from every quarter, in spite of the obscurity of 
her situation ; and it is not in the nature of 
woman, kind-hearted and gentle as she is, to 
look coldly upon her admirers. But, besides, 
most of her visiters resorted to her for improve- 
ment and counsel, and under such circumstances 
she could not certainly find it in her heart to 
treat them coldly. In her letters she complains 
much of the interruptions of society, of unprofit- 
. able calls, of worldly company, interruptions to 
which every person in her situation is necessa- 
rily exposed, but to which she was more par- 
ticularly liable on account of her numerous 
friends; the sympathy felt on account of her 
recent trials ; the high estimate placed upon her 
judgment ; her social qualities ; and her pecu- 
liar fitness to give religious instruction. Barley 
V/ood, therefore, was seldom free from visiters. 
All were sure of a kind, hospitable reception, 
and to all was she accessible. 

About the time of removing to Barley Wood, 
Miss More prepared and published a complete 
edition of all her works, accompanied by a pre- 
face written with great ability ; in which she 
sets forth her object, and the design she has in 
view in coming before the public in this new 
form. " These scattered pieces," she remarks, 
" besides that they have been suffered to pass 
through successive editions with little or no 
correction, were, in their original appearance, 
of all shapes and sizes, and utterly unreducible 
to any companionable form ;" and with charac- 
teristic modesty she adds : — "May I be permit- 



90 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

ted to declare that at no period of my life did I 
ever feel such unfeigned diffidence at the ap- 
pearance of even the smallest pamphlet, as I 
now feel at sending this, perhaps too volumin- 
ous collection, into the world." 

The sense of responsibility under which she 
now published is well set forth in another part 
of this preface : — " I am not," she says, " in- 
sensible to human estimation : to the approba- 
tion of the wise and the good, I have been peE- 
haps too sensible : but I check myself in the 
indulgence of this dangerous pleasure, by recol- 
lecting that the hour is fast approaching when 
no human verdict, of whatever authority in 
itself, and however favourable to its object, will 
avail any thing, if not crowned with the acquit- 
tal of that Judge in whose power is life eternal. 
Every emotion of vanity dies away, every 
swelling of ambition subsides, before the con- 
sideration of this solemn responsibility : and 
though I would ever pay all due deference to 
the opinion of private critics, and of the public, 
yet my anxiety with respect to the sentence of 
both is considerably diminished by the reflec- 
tion that, not the writings, but the writer, will 
soon be called to another tribunal, to be judged 
on far other grounds than those on which the 
decisions of literary statutes are framed ; a tri- 
bunal at which the sentence passed will depend 
on far other causes than the neglect of the rules 
of composition." 

Miss More had scarcely entered her new 
habitation when she was attacked with still 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 91 

more serious indisposition, which confined her 
for some weeks. Amidst all her sufferings, 
however, she sought relief in Him who alone 
was able to grant her comfort of body, or peace 
of mind. At the commencement of 1803 she 
says in her journal : — " I again resolve, O 
Lord, to commence the year with a solemn 
dedication of myself to thee : thine I am ; I am 
not my own ; thou hast bought me with a price. 
Let me henceforth live to him who loved me, 
and gave himself for me. Sanctify to me. Lord, 
my long and heavy trials ; remove them not 
till they have answered those ends they were 
sent to accomplish." 

She was very much disposed to improve 
every dispensation of Providence to her spirit- 
ual good. In a letter to a friend about the same 
time she thus seriously writes : — " My old 
friend Lady Aylesbury is gone. Cadell, with 
whom I set out twenty-eight years ago in a 
literary connection, is also gone. He, very 
healthy, taken ; I, very sickly, spared. Owen, 
Cambridge, Bennett, Langton, all lately dead ; 
besides numbers of others, less noted, but young- 
er and more promising, who have been dropping 
on the right hand and on the left. Yet," she 
adds, " how hard is it to bring the mind seri- 
ously, earnestly, and practically, to prepare for 
one's own call !" In her journal a little while 
after she writes : — " Heard to-day of new at- 
tacks from the old quarter ; Lord grant that ^ 
may bear this with holy resignation. May these 
trials lead me to look to Him who, when he 



92 MEMOIR OF HAXNAH MORE 

was reviled, reviled not again ; who endurcid 
the contradiction of sinners against himself." 

Such was her constant indisposition at this 
time that she was seldom able to attend public 
worship, which was a great grief to her. " For- 
merly," she writes, " I was glad when they 
said unto me, ' Let us go up into the house of 
the Lord ;' now I endeavour to submit cheer- 
fully to be detained by sickness ; yet it is a 
great hindrance to spiritual improvement." ..And 
after a long season of confinement to her room, 
on being permitted once more to appear in the 
courts of the Lord's house, she thus acknow- 
ledges the privilege : — " By the great favour 
and goodness of God I have been enabled this 
day to go to church. Adored be thy holy 
name." 

Miss More frequently alludes in her letters 
to meeting the P^j^incess Charlotte of Wales, 
whom she represents as an interesting and 
sprightly child. In one of these letters she 
says she is " the prettiest, most sensible, and 
genteel little creature you would wish to see." 
This little princess was the heir presumptive 
to the British crown, and having now arrived 
at a suitable age, his late majesty, George 
IIL, and his royal consort, [her grandparents] 
were anxious to adopt for her the best course 
of instruction that could h6 devised. The sub- 
ject was one of national concern, and the king 
and queen having expressed to the bishop of 
London their high approbation of Miss More's 
book on Female Education, the bishop lost no 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 93 

time in suggesting to Miss More the propriety 
of writing a work on the course of education 
proper for the princess ; and strongly urged 
her to the task. She at first objected ; but the 
bishop having convinced her that it was a duty 
she owed the nation, she reluctantly undertook 
it. 

The composition of this work kept her closely 
employed until the spring of 1805, when it was 
published in two volumes, bearing the modest 
title of " Hints toward Forming the Character of 
a Young Princess." , As no tutor was employed 
at the time she commenced the work, it has 
been supposed that she had some expectation 
of being selected to that important trust. Whe- 
ther this was so or not, it is known that she 
suspended the work on the appointment being 
made, thinking that it might be deemed imper- 
tinent, or an interference to undertake to direct 
one so learned as the bishSp of Exeter, who 
was the person selected. After some scruples 
the work was resumed with the design of meet- 
ing these objections by publishing anonymously, 
and inscribing the work to the bishop himself. 

Accordingly the work appeared without her 
name, and the dedication was so complimentary 
a.« entirely to pacify the bishop for any undue 
intrusion upon the duties of his office. She 
transmitted him copies for himself, for the king 
and queen, and for the prince and princess of 
Wales, which were duly acknowledged ; the 
bishop all the time supposing the author to have 
been a gentleman. " Sir," he writes, " I return 



94 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

you my best thanks for the very high degree of 
pleasure and satisfaction the perusal of your 
excellent performance, ' Hints for a Young Prin- 
cess,' has given me. The world will soon, I 
am confident, be as anxious to know as I am, 
to whom we are all indebted for so useful a 
work." Soon after he added the following: — 
" The bishop of Exeter has the pleasure to in- 
form the author of ' Hints for a Young Prin- 
cess,' that he has had the honor of presenting 
copies of that excellent work to the king and 
queen, and to the prince and princess of Wales. 
The queen has read the work, and declared her 
approbation of it." 

The work had a rapid sale, and was so gene- 
rally ascribed to the pen of Miss More that she 
thought it affectation longer to attempt conceal- 
ment : she therefore addressed a letter to the 
bishop of Exete^icknowledging the author- 
ship. The bishqr thanked her both for the 
disclosure and for the work, though it seems he 
had not been without his suspicions that the 
book was hers ; for he says : — " At the time I 
addressed my two notes to the author, I had a 
very strong inclination to address them to the 
authoress^ And again : — " When I had the 
honour of seeing the queen a few days since, 
her majesty, after saying many things in com- 
mendation of the new work, asked me if I knew 
who the author of it was. I replied that I cer- 
tainly could not take upon me to say ; but from 
strong internal evidence, I had great reason to 
believe that Miss Hannah More was the person 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 95 

to whom we were indebted for this excellent 
book." 

The work appears to have created some sen- 
sation, and to have been generally read among 
the higher classes. " It was," says one of her 
biographers, " gratefully received as a seasonable 
publication on a very important subject, and its 
merits were highly and most deservedly appre- 
ciated. Though designed principally for the 
royal pupil, it abounds with useful lessons of 
instruction for the young of all classes, but es- 
pecially of those among the higher ranks. As 
a complete system of education, it was liable to 
exception. It would have been better had it 
been less political and less voluminous. It was 
hastily, though not negligently written, and 
there are some instances of tautology which 
would not probably have been allowed to remain 
had she given it her careful revision. But," he 
adds, " the distinguishing •cellence of these 
volumes consists in their decided reference to 
Christian principles. The author never allows 
the reader to forget that of all subjects religion 
is the most important ; and that Christianity is 
the only basis of religion." 

During the summer of 1805 we find Miss 
More spending some time among her friends. 
With the families of Bishop Porteus, Lord 
Teignmouth, Mr. Thornton, and Mr. Wilber- 
force, she passed several weeks. Her perse- 
cutions had greatly multiplied her friends, and 
enlarged her acquaintance ; many hitherto un- 
known to her being desirous of giving her 



96 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

proofs of their high regard. In October she 
suffered another severe indisposition, and on 
her recovery took up with renewed energy the 
improvement of her schools. By her constant 
exposure in this work she again brought on an 
alarming attack of illness which confined her 
to a sick bed for several weeks, and from which 
her friends despaired of her recovery. It pleased 
God, however, again to raise her up and strength- 
en her for renewed labours. Her health, never- 
theless, continued very feeble for some tii^ie. 
Writing to Sir W. W. Pepys, in December 
1808, she says: — "I have not yet recovered 
any thing like health. I am in almost constant 
pain ; my nights are frequently bad ; and I am 
almost totally confined to the house. Yet," 
she says, " I have so many mercies, I have 
such a pleasant prison, would you could see it ! 
my fever is gone, my spirits are not bad." 

And yet amidstHftU these sufferings, her great 
correspondence, her annual visits to her most 
intimate friends, her constant interruptions by 
visits — it is astonishing how much this excel- 
lent woman accomplished. Her mind seems 
not to have lost its buoyancy for any length 
of time, but was ever active in producing some- 
thing to improve and better the condition of her 
species. What a reproof to the thousands of 
sluggish souls who, blessed with talents, time 
health, and acquirements, spend their lives in 
useless inactivity, and when at last death over- 
takes them, first wake up to the appalling reflec- 
tion that they have lived to no purpose. 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 97 



CHAPTER XL 

Death of the ])ishop of London — Writes " Cojlebs in Starch 
of a Wife" — Publishes " Coelebs" — Great sale — Character 
of the work— Plot of " Ca;lebs"— " Ccelcbs" attacked— Miss 
More's feelings under these attacks. 

Among the friends of Miss More none had 
proved more ardent in attachment, more faithful 
in prosperity and in adversity, in sickness and 
in health, than that excellent prelate, the bishop 
of London, Amidst all her sore trials he had 
stood by her with the fidelity of a father. He 
had encouraged her charitable and literary ef- 
forts. He had called forth her talents in vindi- 
cation of Christianity and practical piety. He 
had publicly and privately recommended her 
works. In short he had proved one of those 
ready, judicious counsellors, and steady, untir- 
ing, and devoted friendc, f^r whom we feel at 
once the love and reverence we should feel to 
a parent. 

The days of this good man were now draw- 
ing to a close. His decay was very gentle and 
gradual, and he seems to have passed out of 
time with the same peace and cheerfulness 
which had accompanied him through it, A 
few months before his death he visited Barley 
Wood, where he spent several days in much 
languor of body, but with that placid cheerfulness 
of mind with which the Christian so often 
awaits his last great change. As he approached 
the termination of his career his mind yielded 
in some measure to the infirmities of his body, 
7 



98 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

but his thoughts were still bent on doing some- 
thing for the glory of God. Having heard of 
the institution of a club under the patronage of 
the prince of Wales, which held its meetings on 
the sabbath, he immediately determined, aged 
and feeble as he was, to remonstrate with this 
royal personage on the impropriety and sinful 
ness of the course. In the enfeebled state of 
his body and mind, the effort was a great one, 
and he addressed a note to Miss More, without 
stating his designs, asking her prayers. " I 
am," he says, " in great difficulties and distress. 
My great hope and resource is, what I have al- 
ways had recourse to in such cases, prayer. 
Give me then your frequent and fervent prayers, 
and I shall hope for that most powerful protec- 
tion of a gracious Providence which I am con- 
vinced has never failed in similar cases." 

With such feelings he reached the residence 
of the prince, asked an audience, and. supported 
by two faithful servants, he entered the apart- 
ment, where, with agitated earnestness, he en- 
treated him not thus to desecrate God's holy 
day. The prince was much affected, and 
promised that his request should be granted. 
On which he again addressed Miss More with 
this brief line, written May 5, 1 809 : — " My dear 
Miss More, prayer has had its usual effect, and 
all is now perfectly right." This was the last 
line she received from him : in about two weeks 
after he was called to his reward, being in the 
78th year of his age. His last hours are thus 
described by Mrs. Kennicott : — "On Friday he 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 99 

was brought to Fulham. When he entered the 
great hall he exclaimed, ' I thank God for per- 
mitting me to come once more to this place !' 
The next morning he said the air rel'reshed 
him, and spoke of the beauty of the lawn. He 
was carried down to dinner, and soon after was 
seized with something like a convulsion, was 
taken to the sofa, received a cordial, fell into a 
quiet sleep for three hours, and only just opened 
his eyes to close them again for ever." 

Thus died this excellent prelate who, in his 
private and public walks, presented an example 
of zeal and urbanity, dignity and humility, deci- 
sion and candour, seldom combined in one cha- 
racter. To Miss More, who had so often been 
the partaker of his kindness and hospitality, 
and who had spent the month of May with him 
for about twenty years, the stroke was very 
heavy. 

She had been for some time engaged in 
writing a work entitled " Ccelebs in Search of 
a Wife," but so affected was she by the death 
of her friend, that she could not proceed. In 
reply to Mrs Kennicott, who had announced 
the melancholy news, she says : — " After read- 
ing your most interesting letter once, I was 
obliged to put it away for several days before I 
could acquire fortitude to read it again." As a 
token of his regard the bishop bequeathed to 
Miss More one hundred pounds, which she ap- 
propriated in erecting to his memory, at Barley 
Wood, an urn, on which was inscribed the fol- 
lowing brief memento : — 



100 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

" TO BEILBY PORTEUS, 

LATE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON, 

IN MEMORY OF 

LONG AND FAITHFUL FRIENDSHIP. 

1809." 

As soon as Miss More sufficiently recovered 
herself after the death of the bishop, she re- 
sumed the composition of " Ccelebs," which 
was brought out in two volumes octavo, in De- 
cember, 1809, without her name, and indeed 
without intrusting her secret even to those very- 
few friends who had usually been in her confi- 
dence on similar occasions. But notwithstand- 
ing this disadvantage, it excited such imme- 
diate and universal attention, that she received, 
in a very few days, notice to prepare for a se- 
cond edition ; and before this edition could be 
put to press, and in less than a fortnight from 
the first appearance of the work, it was out of 
print. In nine months it passed through no 
less than eleven successive editions, and the 
last was soon followed by another, yielding her 
a profit of about $10,000. In the United States 
the sale was little less rapid, Miss More having 
lived to see thirty editions published, of one 
thousand copies each. 

For some time she continued to maintain her 
secresy with great success, receiving from time 
to time letters from her intimate friends desiring 
her by all means ta read " Ccelebs," and de- 
scril)ing to her great amusement the different 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 101 

characters which figured in the work, praising 
its sentiments, and commending its tendency. 
Others, however, more penetrating, fixed the 
authorship on her at once, and without st^ruple. 
But it was not till the work had passed through 
several editions that she was constrained to ac- 
knowledge herself its author. 

" Ccelebs in Search of a Wife," is a book 
which has been much read, which will long 
continue to be read, and which well deserves to 
be read. It was designed to show, through the 
agreeable medium of an attractive story, that 
rehgion might be brought into all the concerns 
of ordinary life, without at all impairing its ac- 
tivity, and without rendering its possessor less 
cheerful or agreeable. This object was accom- 
plished best in the mode adopted : and it can- 
not be doubted that the true picture which Miss 
More has drawn, of the beneficial and kindly 
influences of religion in regulating the temper 
and bettering the heart, has caused thousands 
to fall in love with piety and virtue who other- 
wise could have never felt their benign influ- 
ence. Important lessons on domestic subjects, 
intellectual attainments, social virtues, and es- 
pecially on religion and morals, are here incul- 
cated, or rather acted before the reader, in a 
manner so agreeable that he cannot fail to fall 
in love with them. 

The incidents of the story are briefly these : 
A young gentleman descended from an opulent 
family, educated and intelligent, is, soon after 
leaving the university, bereft of his excellent 



102 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

father, who had enjoined it upon him not to 
form a matrimonial connection until he had 
consulted Mr. Stanley, an intimate and pious 
friend •residing in another part of the kingdom. 
Soon after the death of his father he also loses 
his pious mother, who had given him much ex- 
cellent instruction, by which he could not fail 
to profit. Feeling the want of a companion, 
the young man begins to look around him for 
that purpose, and makes a visit to London, 
among the highly respectable families with 
which his father was acquainted. As he sets 
out he remarks : — " My motive for performing 
this journey is, that I may select a deserving 
companion for life. In such a companion, I 
said to myself, as I drove along in my post- 
chaise, I do not want a Helen, a Saint Cecilia, 
or a Madame Doucier. Yet she must be ele- 
gant, or I should not love her ; sensible, or 1 
should not respect her ; prudent, or I could not 
confide in her ; well informed, or she could not 
educate my children ; well bred, or she could 
not entertain my friends ; consistent, or I should 
ofiend the shade of my mother ; pious, or I 
should not be happy with her, because the 
prime comfort in a companion for life, is the 
delightful hope that she will be a companion 
for eternity." 

With his standard fixed thus high, Coelebs 
passes a few days in different families, where 
he observes all the follies and vices of society, 
in a manner that evinces great knowledge of 
mankind in the writer. He is struck with the 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 103 

faults of education, the ignorance, the want of 
principle, the want of religion, which he finds 
in most of these families : and after passing 
through a great variety of scenes, he visits the 
residence of Mr. Stanley, the gentleman whom 
his father had enjoined him to consult. He 
found here a kind and affectionate family, the 
parents pious, the children educated, the house 
orderly, no attempt at display, no undue atten- 
tion to fashion or vain accomplishments ; but 
all wise, elegant, neat, social ; and finally forms 
an attachment for the eldest daughter, and mar- 
ries her, which turns out in the sequel to have 
been the object and desire of his father. 

The great popularity of this work did not ex- 
empt it from attack. A Roman Catholic priest 
assailed Miss More with great bitterness, on 
account of a brief passage which he thought 
levelled against the church to which he be- 
longed. Miss More wrote him a short reply, 
in which she says : — " Reverend sir, it has 
been my lot to be frequently attacked. It has 
been my practice never to defend myself. I 
should not now have troubled you with an an- 
swer did I not feel it necessary to correct the 
misapprehension on which you ground your re- 
sentment." She then goes on to explain her 
meaning in the offensive passage, and adds, 
" I have no motive in this brief answer but to 
express my concern if I have offended against 
Christian charity, and to ask your pardon if I 
have unintentionally offended a man of piety 
and learning. On cool reflection I think you 



104 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

will not be altogether satisfied with the harsh- 
ness of your letter." She was mistaken ; the 
priest persisted in his opinions, and she dropped 
the matter. 

But " Coelebs" was assailed in several other 
quarters, especially in one of the reviews, where 
the writer warns the bishop " that it was in- 
tended to overturn the church, and that the 
deepest mischief lurks in every page." These 
attacks, however, caused Miss More little un- 
easiness. " With what delight," she says, in a 
letter to a friend, " do I turn from these petty 
grievances to the information you give me of 
the flourishing state of religion in your neigh- 
bourhood : this is indeed a cause of thankful- 
ness. Pray for me, my dear sir, that I may be 
more detached from the world, more spiritually- 
minded, less engrossed by the things of time 
and sense, which my judgment despises, but 
which absorb too much of those affections 
which are due only to eternal things." 

In such a frame of mind the censures oi 
praises of the world were not likely to make a 
very deep impression upon her. Indeed she 
seems to have laboured so exclusively for the 
promotion of virtue and piety that, although not 
insensible to her literary reputation, yet she re- 
garded it as of little importance compared with 
the accomplishment of the one great object 
which she had in view. It must, therefore, 
have been a great satisfaction to Miss More to 
receive, as she did, almost daily, testimonials 
of the benefits which had resulted from her 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 105 

literary labours, accompanied as tliey were 
with pressing entreaties that she would, if health 
and leisure permitted, favour the world with 
some other productions of her pen. 



CHAPTER XII. 

"Practical Piety" — Character of the work — Journey to 
Staffordshire — " Christian Morals" — Remarks on the work 
— Death of Miss Mary More — Visits Lady Sparrow and 
other friends. 

In the autumn of 1810 Miss More com- 
menced writing another ethical work, which 
was put to press early in the spring of 1811, 
and soon after appeared in two volumes bearing 
the title of " Practical Piety, or the Influence 
of the Religion of the Heart on the Conduct of 
the Life." This work was announced with her 
name, and the first edition was all bespoken be- 
fore it had passed through the press, and it soon 
ran on to a tenth. Its objects and character 
are well expressed in the title. It was an ef- 
fort to divest religion of the abstractions with 
which it had become incumbered, and connect 
it with the practical duties of life. It is divided 
into chapters, most of which are on difl^erent 
subjects : all of which are, however, important, 
and treated with that ability, and written in that 
animated and spirited style which throws around 
them the peculiar fascinations of the author's 
gifted mind. Mr. Taylor, one of her biogra- 
phers, justly observes that " although there are 



106 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

passages which might have been improved by a 
careful revision, yet the figures are beautiful, 
and happily chosen, the sentiments purely evan- 
gelical, the appeals powerfully awakening, the 
motives for persevering in a course of piety. 
Scriptural, well selected, and forcibly applied. 
" No one," he adds, " could read the work 
without deriving from it much benefit ; and to 
the Christian mourner, struggling with difficul- 
ties which he feels unable to surmount, many 
of the chapters are peculiarly adapted." 

Miss More, with the humility which ever be- 
longs to the truly pious, felt her own unworthi- 
ness to such a degree that she was anxious to 
have the reader understand that she did not set 
herself up as an example of those high attain- 
ments which she claimed in her book to be the 
privilege of the Christian. In her preface she 
says : — " An eminent professor of our own 
time modestly declared that he taught chymistry 
in order that he might learn it : the writer of 
the following pages might offer with far more 
justice a similar declaration, as an apology for 
so frequently treating on the important topics of 
religion and morals. Abashed by the equitable 
precept, 

' Let those teach others who themselves excel,' 

she is aware how fully she is putting it in the 
power of the reader to ask, in the searching 
words of an eminent prelate ' They that speak 
thus, and advise thus, do they act thus V She 
can defend herself in no other way than by 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 107 

adopting for a reply the words of the same ve- 
nerable divine, ' O that it were not too true !' " 

This excellent work which aimed at nothing 
less than raising the standard of Christianity 
above the mere forms into which it had fallen, 
especially in the Established Church, appears to 
have been written under no very favourable cir- 
cumstances. Miss More's health, never good, 
had, as she advanced in life, become much en- 
feebled, and her frequent attacks of illness left 
her but short seasons of even comparatively 
good health. In a letter to Sir W. Pepys, after 
thanking him for his good opinion of her work, 
she adds : — " It is nothing to the public that it 
was written in constant pain, and in such a hur- 
ry that it was very little longer in writing than 
in printing. But life is short ; mine is particu- 
larly uncertain, and I had persuaded myself that 
it was better to bring it out in a defective state 
than not at all." In the same letter she defends 
herself against a charge of too great strictness 
of principle, which some had urged as an ob- 
jection to her writings : — " I am not," she says, 
" aware of that excessive strictness, of which 
your pious friends complain. The gospel is 
strict. The cutting off a right hand, and pluck- 
ing out a right eye, though only used as meta- 
phors, are surely more strict than any thing I 
hav^ said." 

In the autumn of 1811 Miss More paid a vi- 
sit to Mr Gisborne, in Staffordshire, where she 
spent about a month very agreeably. She thus 
describes the incidents of the visit in a letter to 



108 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

Mrs. King : — " You will be surprised to hear 
what a rambler I have been. I, who never 
reckoned on going again out of my own little 
circle, took courage the beginning of August to 
set out with Patty on a long-promised visit, to 
our excellent friend Mr. Gisborne, at his forest 
in Staffordshire. The forest indeed is de- 
stroyed, with which I was disposed to be dis- 
satisfied. But when I saw near ten thousand 
acres of yellow harvest, when I saw a beautiful 
new church erected, and a handsome parsonage 
built and endowed, and my admirable friend 
preaching to a good congregation, in a place so 
lately the shelter of thieves, and poachers, 
[game-stealers,] and vagabonds, I gave up my 
romance in favour of such solid improvements. 
Mr. Gisborne and some other gentlemen still 
possess a beautiful piece of forest about their 
respective habitations. Mr. G. spends his large 
fortune in a most liberal manner. His esta- 
blishment is large, and his manner of living ele- 
gantly hospitable. We had an excellent society 
in the house, which is the abode of talents, 
piety, and benevolence. We staid a month 
with our friends at Yoxall, and then crossed the 
country to visit some old acquaintances at 
Shrewsbury, whence we took a peep into North 
Wales, and visited the celebrated ladies of 
Llangollen Vale. With the vale and the ladies 
we were much delighted. We paid a visft in 
our way home to your valuable friend the bishop 
of Gloucester, who received us most kindly." 
In the early part of 1813 " Practical Piety" 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 109 

was followed by another work of the same class, 
entitled " Christian Morals." Il was composed 
dm'ing a season of great bodily infirmity, as she 
informs us in one of her letters, and under the 
impression that her day of labour was almost 
spent. " Having been confined six months," 
she says, " out of eight since Christmas, and 
foreseeing, or rather knowing that I have not 
many Christmases to expect, I was willing to 
turn my imprisonment to some little account, 
and have been writing some more last words. 
The book is to be called " Christian Morals." 
I do not talk of it, except to one or two particu- 
lar friends, because I do not like to have it dis- 
cussed, and to be questioned before hand. 
Whether it is worth finishing I hardly know, 
but Providence sometimes works by poor weak 
instruments." In relation to another cause 
which impeded the progress of the work, she 
says :-~" If I had expected to be so over- 
whelmed with company, I believe I should have 
gone from home to write more at leisure ; but 
it is now too late in the season. We had 
nineteen persons here yesterday, of whom I did 
not know six. I have, however, had much 
pleasure in seeing some old friends, H. Bow- 
dler last week, and on another day Mrs. Bar- 
bauld, an acquaintance of forty years. I greatly 
admire her talents and taste ; but our views, 
both religious and political, run so very wide of 
each other, that I lose the great pleasure that 
might otherwise be found in her society, which 
is very intellectual." 



MO MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

Notwithstanding the disadvantage under which 
she laboured in the composition of this work, it 
was written in her best style, and was con- 
sidered by her as superior to its predecessoi 
" Its chief excellence, however," says one, 
whose opinion we have elsewhere quoted, 
" consists in the correct delineations of the hu- 
man heart, with which it everywhere abounds. 
In almost every -page proofs are given of the 
writer's intimate acquaintance with this impor- 
tant branch of knowledge. Her remarks were 
evidently the result, not so much of the know- 
ledge she had collected from books, though she 
had read very extensively, and to excellent 
purpose, as of the accurate observations she 
had made of the workings of her own mind and 
of the minds of others. She had evidently 
studied human nature most closely; and so 
truly does she describe its corrupt workings, 
that one can hardly peruse any chapter of the 
work without benefit. An impression rests on 
the reader's mind of self-dissatisfaction, and yet 
of cordial esteem for the writer, through whose 
pen it has been produced ; because a full con- 
viction forces itself upon him that the writer's 
object in composing the work was to promote 
the best interests of the human race. Literary- 
reputation, it is easily discovered, was not 
made the supreme, but the subordinate object. 
To please the fancy it is clear was not her aim, 
but to benefit the soul." 

Soon after the publication of this work Miss 
More was called to mourn the loss of her eldest 



^ MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE, 111 

sister, Miss Mary More. ' She had been for 
some time declining under the weight of years 
and disease, and on Easter Sunday, the 18th of 
April, 1813, crowned a most useful and active 
life' by a peaceful and happy death. This was 
the first breach which had been made in the 
family circle of these pious sisters, who had 
during many years been supported and encou- 
raged by each other in all their acts of benevo- 
lence and usefulness. The separation wa* 
painful, but under such circumstances the Chris- 
tian has consolations to which the world is a 
stranger. His hope is indeed an anchor to the 
soul. Confident of a glorious immortality, death 
is swallowed up in victory ; the separation to 
him is but temporary, and he looks forward to 
the time when the social intercourse shall be 
renewed, where neither pain, nor sorrow, nor 
death shall ever come — "where the wicked 
cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." 
It was this well-assured hope, that death was 
to the deceased eternal gain, which sustained 
the survivors under their affliction. Miss More 
thus alludes to the event in one of her letters 
written a few days after : — " The solemn scene 
is closed. My dear eldest sister is escaped 
from this world of sin, and is I trust, through the 
mercies of her God and the merits of her Sa- 
viour, translated to a world of peace, where 
there will be neither sin, sorrow, nor separation. 
Her desire to be gone was great. We had all 
of us the melancholy satisfaction to see her 
breathe her last. I thought it something blessed 



112 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. • 

to die on Easter Sunday, to descend to the 
grave on the anniversary day when Jesus had 
triumphed over it. It is pleasant to see death 
vi^ithout its terrors. We visit the cold remajns 
many times a day, and I am dividing my morn- 
ing between the contemplation of her serene 
countenance and reading my favourite book, 
' Baxter's Saint's Rest.' " This excellent woman 
thus peacefully took her departure in the 76th 
year of her age. 

During the summer Miss More, notwitli- 
standing the feeble state of her health, accepted 
a pressing invitation from Lady Sparrow to visit 
her at her seat in Huntingdonshire. But she 
reached the residence of her friend only to keep 
her apartment under a fresh attack of illness 
which unfitted her for society during the greater 
part of the month that she remained there. 
Having partially recovered she proceeded into 
Kent with the intention of paying a visit to 
Lord Barham, an old and much-valued Chris- 
tian friend. In her way, however, she stopped 
to spend a few days with Mr. Henry Hoare, at 
Mitcham, where she had been but a short time 
when she heard of the death of Lord Barham. 
She thus alludes to this journey and to the death 
of her friend, in a letter to Mrs. King. " After 
having spent thirty-five winters in London, I 
have never ventured thither since my last great 
illness ; and indeed I had entirely renounced 
any idea of another long journey. I was, how- 
ever, induced by my delightful friend. Lady 
Olivia Sparrow, to make her a visit at her seat 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 113 

in Huntingdonshire. Our enjoyment was a 
good deal impaired by my being severely ill for 
a fortnight. When I grew better I yielded to 
the entreaties of my dear old friend Lord Bar- 
ham, to extend my journey to Kent, to pay him 
a last visit. Patty and I set out, and were 
within twenty miles of Barham Court when the 
news of his unexpected death stopped us short. 
It was an awful and instructive lesson. We 
spent a few days with Mr. Wilberforce, but I 
did not venture to enter London. I had too 
many friends there, and was afraid of the bustle, 
late hours, &c." 

In a letter to Lady Sparrow she describes 
the remainder of the journey, alluding in very 
pathetic language to the remembrance of former 
days. " Though we were obliged," she says, 
" to drive through Hyde Park, I kept my reso- 
lution of not entering London. We took Straw- 
berry Hill in our way, and spent one night 
with Lady Waldegrave, who was as thankful 
for our short visit as if we had conferred on her 
some mighty obligation. She was more cheer- 
ful than usual. That well-known spot recalled 
to my mind a thousand recollections, partly 
pleasing, but more painful. The same feelings 
were excited in us as we called afterward at 
Mrs. Garrick's, (we did not find her.) The li- 
brary, the lawn, the temple of Shakspeare, all 
of which I iDOidd see for the last time. What 
wit, what talents, what vivacity, what friendship 
have I enjoyed at both these places ! Where 
are they now ? I have been mercifully spared 
8 



114 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

lO see the vanity and emptiness of every thing 
that is not connected with eternity ; and seeing 
this, how heavy will my condemnation be if I 
do not lay it to heart ! We had a good journey 
home, and the comfort of finding all pretty well, 
and our little spot blooming as Eden." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

The parish schools — Other acls of benevolence— Observa- 
tions — Writes her " Essay on the Character of St. Paul" — 
Accident endangering her life — Publication of " St. Paul" — 
Observations. 

The reader must not suppose that Miss More, 
although oppressed with sickness and enfeebledr 
by age, had abandoned her care of the parish 
schools, which had for so long a time occupied 
a large share of her attention. On the contrary 
they continued to be the object of her solicitude, 
and w%re blessed with increasing success. 
Many of the difficulties which she had to en- 
counter in the outset on account of incompetent 
teachers, had been obviated by supplying the 
schools with instructers educated under her own 
eye, and whose solid and useful qualities had 
been tested for a series of years. The oppo- 
sition, too, which she had met with in almost 
every parish, had gradually yielded, as the 
beneficial tendency of her efforts became obvi- 
ous, and a large tract of country hitherto in- 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 115 

rolved in great spiritual darkness, had been 
redeemed from gross ignorance and superstition, 
and taught the way of salvation. The schools 
were always full, and the most unfavourable 
weather seldom prevented an attendance at the 
evening readings, which were still kept up with 
great advantage. The benefit clubs had also 
become an object of eager desire, the funds 
having accumulated to a considerable amount. 
But the attention bestowed upon these benevo- 
lent objects did not prevent Miss More from 
administering consolation to friends in difficult 
or afflicting circumstances, counselling those 
who resorted to her for advice and instruction, 
aiding many benevolent objects, and cultivating 
a closer and more intimate union with her 
Saviour. 

Among those who resorted to her for counsel 
and aid, were many young clergymen, to whom 
her house and her heart were always open. 
Of this class many were in indigent circum- 
stances, and unable to procure those books 
which were so necessary in entering upon the 
duties of the sacred profession, and their wants 
were frequently supplied with a liberal hand 
from her own library ; and in many instances 
she furnished them with religious periodicals 
for a series of years. She also made it a rule 
never to delay answering applications for advice 
or instruction made by letter, and this being 
known caused a great increase to her corres- 
pondence, already too burdensome, and laid her 
open to incessant interruptions ; still she perse- 



116 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

vered, declaring that these continual crossings 
taught her how great was the sacrifice of Him 
who spared not his own life for the good of his 
rebellious creatures. 

It had been the anxious desire of Miss More, 
during a great part of her life, so to exhibit re- 
ligion, both in her life and by her writings, as 
to cause it to be loved and admired by the 
higher classes of society. She seems to have 
imagined that much of the influence of Chris- 
tianity had been lost by its professed adherents 
keeping too much aloof from the people of the 
world, and by too great an austerity of life, by 
which they caused their good to be evil spoken 
of. Miss More had used her utmost exertions 
to correct these impressions, and to a certain 
extent was successful. Most of her earlier 
works, together with " Coelebs," were written 
with this leading object, and certainly if any 
person could be successful, she would have 
been the one : but she found at last that the 
world would love only its own, that the carnal 
mind was enmity against God, and would not 
be subject to his law. No one ever merited the 
world's regard more than she did. With it she 
had freely mingled ; to its improvement she had 
devoted her days and her nights, the flower of 
her youth, the vigour of meridian life, and the 
maturity of age ; yet no sooner did she insist 
on the strictness and purity enjoined by the 
gospel, than she found that the antipathy of the 
carnal mind to true piety was still unchanged ; 
that there was the same deep and abiding ht^tred 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 117 

to the doctrines of the gospel now that marked 
its early introduction. " We see in the case of 
Hannah More," says a pious clergyman of her 
own day, " that every attempt to gain and se- 
cure the world's favour is utterly vain, if you 
support real religion, and act upon it yourself. 
Look at her genius, popularity, influence, and 
her innocence of every thing which can dis- 
gust mankind, and see what treatment religion 
will ever meet with from the world." 

It is even so : the spirit of the world is ut- 
terly incompatible with the spirit of Christianity, 
and so Miss More found it. Notwithstanding 
her scrupulous care never to transcend any of 
the proprieties of life under the most rigid con- 
struction either in her life or writings, she had 
been assailed as a fanatic, a Methodist, a ranter, 
and set down among the most puritanical and 
austere professors of the Christian faith. These 
things had opened her eyes, and she now saw 
how utterly futile it was to court the friendship 
of the world any further than to retain her influ- 
ence in society, and thus enable her still to be, 
in the language of the apostle, all things to all 
men, that she might gain the more. In her 
later works she had, therefore, assumed a bold- 
er tone, and had pointed out with great ability 
the strictness of the gospel requirements, and 
the narrowness of the way which leads to ever- 
lasting life. 

In pursuing this path Miss More had for 
some time been engaged in another work, to 
which she was led by her reflections on the 



118 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

conversion and subsequent character of St 
Paul, which she justly regarded as one of the 
finest illustrations on record of the practical ef- 
fects of Christianity. The work was begun in 
1814, and occupied her at intervals until the 
following year, when it was published in two 
volumes. While engaged on this work she 
met with an accident which had well nigh put 
a dreadful termination to her life and labours. 
She had retired to her apartment, locked the 
door, and seated herself at her table by the fire, 
when in the act of reaching across the fire-place 
to a book-shelf, the corner of her shawl caught 
fire, and before she was conscious of the acci- 
dent she was enveloped in flames. Her cries 
brought her speedy assistance, however, and 
the fire was soon extinguished ; the injury did 
not prove very serious, though Miss Roberts, 
who had rendered her this timely assistance, 
burnt her hands severely, and Miss More was 
also considerably burned. The event made a 
deep impression upon her mind, and caused her 
often to exclaim, in the language of Scripture : 
-^-" When thou walkest through the fire thou 
shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame 
kindle upon thee." In a letter to Mrs. Kenni- 
cott she thus adverts to the accident : — " I con- 
sider myself a monument of God's mercy, as I 
was one sheet of flame before any help arrived. 
Another moment, it is supposed, would have 
rendered the flame inextinguishable. Many 
trifling circumstances which appear to have 
been providentially directed, contributed to my 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 119 

presenation. Being confined with a bad cold, 
I had that day only put on a thick stuff gown, 
which, however, was burnt through the back 
and sleeves ; the day before I wore a muslin 
gown : I had also on at the time three shawls ; 
the one next me was reduced almost to tinder 
before it could be got off; of the others little is 
left. It was in heroically tearing off these, and 
taking me, flaming as I was, as if I had been an 
infant, and laying me on the carpet, that Miss 
Roberts burnt her hands so terribly. They 
were healed, however, sooner than my slight 
wounds, which are now healed also. What a 
warning was this visitation to keep prepared for 
a sudden call ! Yet I fear that I do not turn it 
to a proper account." 

This event, together with a flood of congratu- 
latory letters on her escape, and a multitude of 
visiters, which the circumstance brought to 
Barley Wood, slightly delayed the appearance 
of her forthcoming essay. " You inquire," she 
, says in a letter to Lady Sparrow, " after St. 
Paul ; he is in progress, but his course is much 
interrupted by the multitude of letters I receive 
daily, not from friends, those are refreshing, but 
from strangers : many of them impertinent ap- 
plications ; not a few of which duty and con- 
science oblige me to answer, though I am a 
poor casuist." These letters, which were the 
subject of complaint, contained applications 
from persons mostly unknown to her, for her 
opinion on disputed questions of ethics and spe- 
culative faith; matters in which Miss More 



120 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

took but little delight, and the applications were 
therefore a great annoyance to her. 

Another cause of delay was an application 
from her publishers to make some addition to 
her sacred dramas, the copy-right of which had 
expired, and other booksellers were availing 
themselves of the circumstance to their injury. 
She says : — " I have lived so long that my le- 
gal right to ' Sacred Dramas* is extijict, or 
rather that of Cadell and Davis, to whom I had 
sold the copy. They wrote in a great hurry to 
say that several booksellers had advertised the 
book in an inferior form, and to induce me to 
make some additions to it, which would restore 
to them their right. I refused at first ; but they 
represented to me that as a new edition was in 
the press it would be a considerable loss to 
them : so I have added a scene at the end of 
' Moses/ "* In the same letter we hear again 
of Mrsl Garrick, who had now attained to the 
great age of ninety- one years. 

In the month of February, 1815, Miss More, 
having attained the age of seventy years, the 
Essay on the Character of St. Paul made its ap- 
pearance. But age had not diminished the 
vigour or sprightliness of her intellect, or the 
interest of the public in the productions of her 
pen. The first edition was all sold on the day 
that it was announced, and the author, in one 
of her letters, states that she had not a single 
copy left for her sisters to peruse : and, not- 
withstanding the extraordinary events which 
about that time agitated the world, the career 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 121 

of Bonaparte, the war with America, the com- 
motion of states, so engrossing the public mind 
as to prevent the circulation of almost every 
work not having a direct reference to politics, 
it soon reached a fourth edition. 

It was not her design to give a biographical 
sketch of the apostle's character, nor to inquire 
critically into his writings : but to make such a 
faithful exhibition of both as would be likely to 
benefit the reader. " Waiving," she says, "both 
from inclination and from inability, whatever 
passages in St. Paul's writings may be con- 
sidered controversial, the writer has endea- 
voured, though it must be confessed imperfectly 
and superficially, to bring forward his character 
as a model for our general imitation, and his 
practical writings as a store-house for our gene- 
ral instruction, avoiding whatever might be con- 
sidered as a ground for the discussion of any 
point not immediately tending to practical util- 
ity." 

In another part of the preface she remarks, 
with characteristic humility : — " It is with no 
little diffidence that the writer of the following 
pages ventures to submit them to the public 
eye. She comes in weakness and in fear, and 
in much trembling. She is fully aware that 
whoever undertakes to institute an inquiry into 
the character, and especially the writings of 
St. Paul, in a manner at all adequate to the 
dignity and excellence of both, should possess 
many and high requisites to which she can 
make out no fair title. But it would be useless 



122 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

to insist on her incompetency to the proper ex- 
ecution of such a work, and her deficiencies in 
ancient learning, Biblical criticism, and deep 
theological knowledge, because the sagacity of 
the reader would not fail to be beforehand with 
her avowal in detecting them. It may, how- 
ever, serve as some apology for the boldness of 
the present undertaking, that these volumes are 
not of a critical but practical nature." Her an- 
ticipations respecting the work were not great, 
and she was fully aware that she could not 
write on any thing connected with religion or 
morals without crossing the feelings of some 
who had imbibed peculiar notions : — " My book," 
she says, in a letter to Mrs. Kennicott, " will 
be called, and justly, a presumptuous under- 
taking. I am sure beforehand of two classes of 
enemies, the very high Calvinist, and what is 
called the very high Church party — tw(? for- 
midable bodies ; but as I have written I trust 
from my conscience, I shall patiently submit to 
their different awards. I own the subject is 
above my strength at best, and now that little 
strength is of course less. It will be my last 
attempt." 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 123 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Observation — Loss of old friends— Mr. Thornton, Mr, 
Bowdler, Dr. Buchanan — Severe sickness — Indisposition of 
Miss More's sisters — Death of Miss Elizabeth More — Death 
of Miss Sarah More — Conduct under affliction — Writes 
more tracts and ballads — Corrects some of her works for the 
press — Receives several distinguished persons at Barley 
Wood. 

Miss More had outlived her generation, and 
seemed to stand alone amidst a new race. The 
early friends of her literary career had long 
since sunk to the tomb. Garrick, Johnson, 
Burke, Walpole, Pitt, Reynolds, and many 
others, whose names are identified with the 
history of the world, whose wit, genius, and 
talents, had so often delighted her, and in whose 
friendship she had so largely 'participated, had, 
one after another, left the orbit of their glory, 
and gone to that " undiscovered country, from 
whose bourne no traveller returns." More re- 
cently the good bishop of London, Lord Bar- 
ham, a Christian friend of many years, and a 
beloved sister, had, among others, been added 
to the list of her bereavements, which now 
seemed to accumulate on every side, till an 
age had disappeared before her, and the va- 
cancy of her former associates was filled with 
a new generation whom she knew not. A few 
"of the friends of her maturer years were still 
left, but these were dropping off" on the right 
hand and on the left, and she was now called 
to add to their number the names of Henry 



124 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

Thornton, Esq., and soon after of John Bowdler, 
and Dr. Buchanan. Mr. Thornton had been 
one of the principal contributors to the mainte- 
nance of her schools for many years, and the 
others were of that class of tried and faithful 
friends which so much contribute to our enjoy- 
ment in life. 

Miss More alludes to their losses in a man- 
ner which shows how great was the comforting 
influence of religion in her times of trial. 
"How, alas!" she writes to Lady Sparrow, 
" shall I touch on the successive grievous 
strokes with which we have been smitten in 
three short weeks ? They seem to have come 
rapidly upon us, like the messengers of sad 
tidings to Job. Our eyes were not dried after 
the irreparable loss of Mr. H. Thornton, before 
we received a deep and fresh blow in that of 
Mr. J. Bowdler ; and as it is supposed that 
Bowdler's kind attention on his dying friend 
was the immediate cause of his own death, so 
the attendance of Dr. Buchanan at the funeral 
of his generous patron is said to have given him 
the cold that sent him to the grave. We may 
say with good old Jacob, ' All these things are 
against us.' But God's ways are not as our 
ways ; he saw that our lamented friends were 
matured for heaven beyond the usual ripeness, 
even of distinguished Christians ; and consum- 
mated their bliss when we would have gladly 
detained them in a world of sin and sorrow, 
and incessant trial. They have left us exam- 
ples both how to live and how to die. In Mr. 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 125 

Thornton I have lost not only the most wise, 
and consistently virtuous and pious, but the 
most attached, faithful, and confidential friend. 
My schools, too, have lost one who was their 
principal support for twenty-five years : but my 
own life is likely to be so short that I trust the 
goodness of Providence will enable me to carry 
them on to the end. 

"By the death of Dr. Buchanan the Oriental 
Scripture business has sustained an irreparable 
loss. You will be pleased with a conversation 
he had with a friend a short time before his 
death. He was describing the minute pains he 
had been taking in the proofs and revisions of 
the Syriac Testament, every page of which 
passed under his eye five times before it was 
sent to press. He said he had expected before- 
hand that this process would have proved irk- 
some to him, lyit 'no,' he added, 'every fresh 
perusal of the sacred page seemed to unfold 
new beauties.' Here he stopped and burst 
into tears. ' Do not be alarmed,' said he to 
his friend, as soon as he recovered himself, ' I 
could not suppress the emotion I felt as I recol- 
lected the delight it had pleased God to afford 
me in the reading of his word.' " 

These wounds were still fresh when Miss 
More was called to renewed afflictions. In the 
spring of 1816 she suffered another severe in- 
disposition, which for some days threatened 
her life. Her recovery was slow, and the dis- 
ease left her with impaired hearing, smell, and 
taste. *' Like Barzillai," she says, "I have long 



126 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

ceased to hear any more the voice of singing 
men and singing women : but though I hope I 
can still discern between good and evil, yet I 
cannot taste what I eat or what I drink, 1 
have lost the too senses of smell and taste 
completely for six weeks. It has given me an 
excellent lesson not to overlook common mer- 
cies, for I forgot to value these blessings till I 
had lost them." 

These afflicting dispensations were followed 
by others if possible still more distressing. It 
was evident that death was about to make 
other inroads, not only among her friends, but 
in her family. She was called to witness 
painful and alarming symptoms of declining 
health in her three remaining sisters. " My 
poor sister Martha," she says in a letter to 
Mr. Knox, " has not been out more than three 
or four times for the last nine jnonths ; I fear 
she is in a declining state, and I have sad prog- 
nostics. Her loss to me, to whom she has 
been hands, and eyes, and feet, would be incal- 
culable. My lively sister Sarah, who still re 
tains, at times, all the spirit and vivacity of 
youth, is pronounced to be far gone in a dropsy. 
We lately thought her going very rapidly, but I 
bless God she somewhat rallied, and may, I 
hope, be spared to us a little longer, but her 
symptoms are very bad. My now eldest sister, 
who has long had paralytic indications, has 
been many weeks in bed with a mortification in 
her leg. This has been resisted by vigorous 
means ; but last week, after many hours of 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 127 

quiet sleep, we found, on her awaking, that she 
had lost the power of swallowing and of articu- 
lation. She has remained speechless ever 
since ; and it is a pitiable sight to explore the 
asking eye, and receive no answer. She seems 
to look at us, but there is no speculation in 
those looks. These are trying scenes : pray 
for us, my good friend, that they may be salu- 
tary." 

In the autumn of 1816 her fears were real- 
ized in relation to her eldest sister Elizabeth, 
the closing scene of whose life she thus de- 
scribes in a letter to Lady Sparrow : — " How 
good and how kind are you ! I cordially thank 
you for your two feeling letters. It has, as you 
have heard, pleased God to remove my poor 
sister Betsey from this world of sin and sorrow. 
I humbly trust, that through Him who loved 
her and gave himself for her, she is now a 
happy spirit, disencumbered of a suffering body, 
and escaped from all the infirmities of age, and 
the evils of life. She had for many years spent 
the greater part of her time in reading the 
Scriptures and devotional books ; and latterly 
has read nothing else ; and though she was of 
a reserved temper, and said little, yet I am per- 
suaded she felt her own sinfulness, and was 
earnest in hej supplications to the throne of 
grace and mercy. For the last fortnight she 
was entirely speechless. It was a most pitiable 
sight to see her struggling to express some- 
thing she seemed to wish to say, for her intel- 
lect survived her power of articulation. May 



128 MEBIOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

the remembrance of such scene^i quicken us, 
and make us labour more dihgently to be fol- 
lowers of them who through faith and patience 
inherit the promises." 

The death of Miss Elizabeth More took 
place on the 14th of June, 1816, in the seventy- 
sixth year of her age, and was followed in less 
than a year by the dissolution of another of the 
sisters. Sarah, now the eldest, had for some 
time been gradually sinking under the pressure 
of a most painful disease, and for many months 
her death was daily expected. She survived, 
however, until the 17th of May, 1817, when 
she exchanged a life of suffering for a glorious 
immortality, aged seventy-four. Her last mo- 
ments were the season of her greatest triumph. 
When asked if she had comfort of mind she re- 
plied, " O yes, I have no uncomfortable feel- 
ings at all." One of her friends alluded to her 
great sufferings. " I do not think of them," she 
replied, in a tone of the meekest resignation : 
and soon after, when she was supposed to be 
near her end, she raised her hands in a holy 
transport and exclaimed, " O for the glorious 
morning of the resurrection !" — "but," she added, 
" there are some clouds between." On taking 
leave of her medical attendant she exhorted him 
to love God and take care of his soul ; " and 
O," she exclaimed, "if this should be the blessed 
hour of my deliverance, may I die the death of 
the righteous, and may my last thoughts be 
thoughts of faithfulness." On the following- 
day she awoke suddenly out of a tranquil sleep. 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 129 .. 

and cried out in rapture, " Blessing, and honour, 
and glory, and power be unto the Lamb, — Hal- 
lekijah !" " Four months," says Miss More, 
" we had watched over her increasing disease ; 
the last two exceeded in agony any thing I had 
ever witnessed. Poor Patty and I closely at- 
tended this bed of suffering, but our distresses 
were mingled with much consolation. The 
sprightly, gay-tempered creature, whose vivacity 
age had not tamed, exhibited the most edifying 
spectacle I ever beheld. I cannot do justice to 
her humility, her patience, her submission. It 
was at times something more than resignation, 
it was a sort of spiritual triumph over the suffer- 
ings of her body. She often said, ' I have 
Eiever prayed for recovery, but for pardon: I 
do not fear death, but sin.' When she was 
herself, almost her whole time was spent in 
prayer. So exquisitely keen at times was her 
anguish, that we were frequently roused in the 
night by her piercing groans, which she vainly 
endeavoured to restrain. Our prayers for a 
gentle dissolution were granted ; she expired 
in great tranquillity. May her example sink 
deep in the hearts of all who witnessed it. 
She commonly sent away her surgeon in tears. 
Pray for me, that I may be enabled to do and 
to suffer the whole will of God. My three de- 
parted sisters have quitted the world in the 
same order of succession in which they entered 
it. My turn comes next. But all is in the 
hands of infinite wisdom and mercy." 

These sad events came one after another in 
9 



130 MEMOIR OF UANXAII MORE. 

such rapid succession, and were accomj)anied 
with so much watching and anxiety, that it is 
wonderful how the weak frame of Miss More 
endured the ordeal. Keenly did she feel her 
bereavements, but she repined not, though for 
several weeks both she and her surviving sister 
were unable to see their friends. But such a 
mind as that of Miss More could not long be 
fettered even by sorrow. Between the deaths 
of her two sisters she had, at the earnest soli- 
citation of some friends, penned a number of 
articles after the style of her " Repository 
Tracts," in order to counteract the spirit of in- 
subordination and plunder which pervaded the 
labouring classes in consequence of the pres- 
sure and difficulty of the times. These, con- 
sisting of tracts and ballads, were published by 
a committee formed for the purpose, in London, 
and widely circulated throughout the kingdom, 
but without her name or any knowledge of the 
authorship. But this was not all. In order to 
give employment to the workmen in one or two 
of the parishes where she had schools, and 
where twelve hundred of them were reduced to 
absolute want, she embarked some of her pro- 
perty with Mr. Addington, then of the Treasury, 
in order to set the works in motion, which, with 
the assistance of her friend, she was for some 
time enabled to do. Soon after the death of 
her sister Sarah, in 1817, we find her toiling 
with her pen, and making corrections and addi- 
tions to some of her works, which were again 
running through the press, " CoBlebs" to a fif- 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 131 

teenth edition, and " Practical Piety" to the 
eleventh. 

Indeed the elasticity of Miss More's mind 
was almost beyond belief. Her temper was 
naturally gay, and neither age, sickness, nor 
sorrow, had power, apparently, long to confine 
it. 'She regarded her afflictions as needful to 
her spiritual prosperity, and meekly bowed to 
receive the rod. " Nothing," she says, " but 
the grace of God, and frequent attacks through 
life of very severe sickness, could have kept 
me in tolerable order. If I am no better with 
all these visitations, what should I have been 
without them !" Again she says, " I have 
never yet suffered a blow, of which I did not 
feel the indispensable necessity, in which I did 
not, on reflection, see and feel the compassion- 
ate hand of divine mercy ; the chastisement of 
a tender parent." 

Mr. Wilberforce made several attempts to 
engage her pen in a further effort to check the 
revolutionary spirit which everywhere prevailed 
in the kingdom, but she declined. " How can 
you," she writes, *' be so cruel as to talk of my 
writing for France or England, or for anything? 
I have long since hung up my harp. I did to 
be sure take it down in the spring, but it was 
(hen a Jew''s harp. Dire necessity, and the im- 
portunity of some people, drove me to scribble 
about thirteen pieces, such as they were, in 
about six weeks ; pretty well I think for a sep- 
tuagenary.* 

* One who is seventy years of age. 



132 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

Although Barley Wood had latterly been the 
scene of much affliction, and was despoiled of 
some of its attractions by the withering hand of 
death, yet it was not deserted by those who de- 
lighted in advancing the standard of the cross. 
In the autumn of 1817 Miss More had the gra- 
tification to receive a visit from the celebrated 
Dr. Chalmers, the eloquent Scotch divine, Drs. 
Patterson and Henderson, the Bible mission- 
aries, Sir Alexander Johnstone, with two Cinga- 
lese priests, two Persian noblemen, who had 
visited England to acquire a knowledge of its 
literature, arts, and sciences, and many others. 



CHAPTER XV. 

Extensive circulation of Miss More's works^ — Evident 
benefits of her labours — Sickness — Writes and publishes 
" Moral Sketches" — Observations on the work. 

Several of the works of Miss More, which 
had passed through so many editions at home, 
were equally popular abroad. She had the 
pleasure of learning that large editions had been 
printed and sold in America, some of her friends 
found many copies in Sweden and Iceland. 
" Ccelebs had been translated into French, and 
was favourably received by the critics. From 
Russia she received a letter from a princess, 
informing her that she had translated some of 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 133 

her productions into the Russian tongue, and 
that they had been productive of the happiest 
resuks. ' Practical Piely' was translated into 
the Persian. From the Tract Society of Paris 
she received a letter desiring her to furnish a 
copy of her tracts, to be translated into the 
French language for general distribution. Many 
of her books had been sent out to India, and 
some of them had been translated into Cinga- 
lese. But what gratified Miss More particularly 
was the testimony which she received from 
every direction, that these works, which were 
read by so many persons, were doing something 
for the cause of God and the advancement of 
pure religion. 

But it was not only from her books that she 
now received frequent testimonials of the good 
which she had been instrumental in accom- 
plishing, but also from her other labours, espe- 
cially from her schools. Many of her pupils 
had become^ decidedly pious, and were giving 
the influence of their example in favour of that 
religion which she had endeavoured to teach 
them ; nay, many of them had died in the sure 
and steadfast hope of a blessed immortality, 
and had anticipated her in entering upon the 
glories of that life which is to be hereafter. 
" Two of our first scholars at Cheddar," she 
says in one of her letters, " whom we taught 
their letters thirty years ago, died last week. 
They became remarkably pious, when only 
fourteen years of age. I went to see them a 
short time before their decease. One of them 



134 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

had married a schoolboy of ours, who became 
a good tradesman ; and ihey had prospered in 
life. I never attended a more edifying death- 
bed. Though suffering much from her -mala- 
dies, yet she discovered something more than 
resignation — it was a sort of humble, grateful 
triumph. She was obliged to pray against im- 
patience for death, so ardent was her desire to 
be with her Saviour. O how I envied her! 
There was no heated imagination. She was 
happy on good grounds." 

In September, 1818, both Miss More and her 
remaining sister were again attacked by severe 
indisposition, which for some days threatened 
serious results, but from which they gradually 
recovered. The attack was mainly occasioned 
by the great number of visiters at Barley Wood, 
many of whom were distinguished strangers 
from abroad, and demanded more of the atten- 
tion of these sisters' than their feeble health ad- 
mitted. Miss More had never enjoyed very 
good health, and during her whole life had been 
subject to frequent and violent attacks of illness, 
which, however, she endured with wonderful 
fortitude, and from which she recovered with 
the same buoyancy and energy of mind. " My 
whole Hfe," she justly observes in one of her 
letters, " has been a successive scene of visita- 
tion and restoration. I think I could enumerate 
twenty mortal diseases from which I have been 
raised up, without any consequent diminution 
of strength, except in an illness which hap- 
pered to me ten years ago, arid which continued 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 135 

for nearly two years. Yet let me gratefully 
remember this, that at nearly sixty, after this 
hopeless disease, I was restored to sufficient 
physical strength to write ten volumes, such as 
they are. I remember that in that long afflic- 
tion, though at one time I seldom closed my eyes 
in sleep for forty days and forty nights, yet I 
had never one hour's great discomposure of 
mind, or one moment's failure of reason, tnough 
I was always liable to agitation." 

From this sickness Miss More recovered 
with her usual vigour and elasticity of mind, 
which, indeed, no circumstances seemed able 
to conquer, and notwithstanding her resolution 
never to write another large volume for the 
press, such was her restless desire still to be 
doing something for the benefit of mankind, 
that, at the age of seventy-four she was induced 
again to take up her pen. We give her rea- 
sons in her own words, as contained in a letter 
to Sir W. W. Pepys :— " The newspapers will 
probably have told you," she says, " that I have 
been guilty of the weakness, at my age, of doing 
that imprudent and presumptuous thing, writing 
a book. I had fully resolved, as became me, to 
commit no more indiscretions of this sort, but 
I have broken, as did not become me, my reso- 
lution. Though living in retirement, falsely so 
called, I see so many people from every point 
of the compass, that I find there is a fresh crop 
of errors springing up in a quarter where we 
did not so much as look for them ; namely among 
the religious, or rather the professing part of the 



136 MEMOIR OF HANNA.H MORE. 

world. I have really seen and heard so much 
of the evils arising, and likely to arise, from the 
epidemic French mania that, as King David 
says, ' while I was musing the fire burned, 
and at last I spake' with my pen. You will, I 
fear, think that I have been two strong: but 
when I see my country almost abandoned in 
this second assault upon its safety, and milHons 
[of w^lth] spent abroad, while our poor have 
been perishing at home, I could not restrain my 
feelings." 

The work thus called forth was originally de- 
signed to be merely a pamphlet ; but as she pro- 
gressed, it grew to a good-sized volume. It was 
published during the summer of 1820, under the 
title of " Moral Sketches," and the whole of 
the first impression was taken off the first day. 
It is similar in its character to her other ethical 
works, but more miscellaneous, and notwith- 
standing the age of the author, is not inferior to 
any of them, unless it be " St. Paid," which is 
regarded by many as her master-piece. Its 
excellencies are thus sketched by the Rev. 
Daniel Wilson, now the bishop of Calcutta : — 
" The scrutiny into the heart, the details of 
practical duty, the detection of prevalent dis- 
orders, and, in fine, the new and excellent ob- 
servations on the tendency and development of 
religious principle, all founded on the charac- 
teristic doctrines of Christianity, stamp a high 
value upon the work, and must, under the divine 
blessing, cause it to be productive of mucl^ 
good." 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 137 

In the preface she remarks : — " The writer, 
at her advanced age, has Utile to hope from 
praise, or to fear from censure, except as her 
views have been in a right or wrong direction. 
She has feh that the exposure of growing er- 
rors is a duty devolving on those who have the 
good of mankind at heart : the more nearly her 
time approaches for leaving the' world, there is 
a sense in which she feels herself more in- 
terested in it ; she means, in art increasing 
anxiety for its advancement in all that is right 
in principle and virtuous in action : and as the 
events and experience of every day convince 
her that there is no true virtue which is not 
founded on religion, and no true religion which 
is not maintained by prayer, she hopes to be 
forgiven, if, with declining years and faculties, 
yet with increasing earnestness, from an in- 
creasing conviction of its value, she once more 
ventures to impress this most important topic 
on their attention." 

Some portion of the work is devoted to the 
subject of education ; a subject which she well 
understood, and the immense importance of 
which she justly appreciated. " Why," she 
asks, " should not Christian instruction be made 
a prominent article in the education of those 
who are to govern and legislate, as well as 
those who are to w(j|;k and serve ? Why are 
these most important beings the very beings 
whose immortal interests are the most neglect- 
ed ? Parents are grieved at the indications of 
evil dispositions in their children, yet they study 



138 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

not the human character, but credulously believe 
that the accidental defect and the budding vice 
time will cure ; forgetting that time itself cures 
nothing, but only inveterates and exasperates 
where religion is not allowed to operate as a 
corrective. Gentlemen should be scholars : 
liberal learning.need not interfere with religious 
acquirements, and no human learning ought to 
keep religion in the back ground, so as to ren- 
der it an accidental or subordinate part in the 
education of a Christian gentleman." These 
sentiments are worthy to be treasured up by 
every pious parent. It seems to be the error, es- 
pecially of our own country, that knowledge alone 
can regulate the heart and correct the life, for- 
getting that the imaginations of the unrenewed 
heart are evil and only evil continually, and 
that nothing can efTectually counteract this evil 
but religion. How necessary, then, that it 
should be made a part, an essential part of our 
education. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Death of Miss Martha More — Miss More's feelings under 
this bereavement — Alarming illness — State of her mind — 
Writes a " Sketch of the Life of the King" — Correspondence 
— Remarks on Madame Neckar's *' Notice of the Charactei 
and Writings of Madame de Stael." 

Miss MojiE was not permitted to enjoy, with- 
out attendant trials, the congratulations which 
flowed in upon her from all quarters of the 
kingdom on the late successful achievement of 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 139 

her pen. Death which had removed so many 
of her dear friends and relatives was about to 
strike a blow still nearer home, and to deprive 
her of her only remaining sister, who was now 
her chief help, support, and comfort. Miss 
Martha More, the youngest of the five sisters, 
was a most benevolent, active, affectionate, and 
pious lady, and upon her had devolved in a great 
measure the execution and responsibility of all 
those schemes of charity and kindness origi- 
nating in her more intellectual sister. She had 
been connected with the parish schools from 
the very first moment of their existence, had 
taken the chief charge of household affairs, had 
dispensed the bounties which her sister gathered, 
and was to Miss More, as she well expressed 
it, " hands, and eyes, and feet." She possessed 
a sound understanding, a cultivated mind, a ge- 
nerous and noble heart, was cheerful without 
levity, serious without affectation, zealous with- 
out ofiiciousness, and withal possessed a great 
aptitude for imparting instruction, and a dili- 
gence as indefatigable as that of her untiring 
sister. With such a disposition, softened and 
moulded by the benign influences of Christian- 
ity, and a heart which was susceptible of nothing 
but kindness, it may readily be imagined how 
close must have been the ties which bound her 
to Miss More, after a long life spent in the 
closest union, the same pursuits, the same cares, 
anil the same enjoyments. To lose such a sis- 
ter, at such a time, was, indeed, no ordinary 
affliction. 



140 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

She had taken cold in an excursion with the 
Wilberforce lamily, who were spending a few 
days at Barley Wood, and lived only four days 
from the time of her attack ; dying, like those 
of her family who had gone before, in the con- 
fident expectation of a glorious immortality. 
This event took place on the 14th of September, 
1819, in the seventieth year of her age, and is 
thus described by her sister in a letter to Mrs, 
M'Auley : — " She came to my bedside at eleven 
at night, and said, ' They are all gone to bed, 
and our VV. and 1 have had a nice hour's chat.' 
In an hour and a half after this she awoke in 
the pangs of death ; after agonies unspeakable, 
and shrieks which rent my heart, she sunk for 
eight or ten hours into total insensibility, with 
all the marks of a corpse on her countenance. 
We sent for Dr. Lovell, who scarcely left her 
while she lived. Whether rational or delirious, 
fier expressions all indicated a strong faith in 
her crucified Saviour. She was at times per- 
fectly composed, said she had done but little 
for God, but had never trusted in any thing she 
had done. A few hours before her departure 
she rambled a good deal, but in a quiet way, 
full of piety and charity. 1 perceived her last 
breath, when she sweetly slept in Jesus without 
a sigh or groan. Her countenance in her coffin 
was lovely. I wish you could have seen how 
happy she looked. I need not tell you that my 
grief is exquisite : but my consolations are great, 
and I trust that not one rebellious thought has 
risen in my heart. On the contrary I enumerate 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 141 

my many mercies ; that she was spared to me so 
long, that she had been in such a constant state 
of preparation, that my grief is not aggravated by 
any doubt of her present happiness, that she has 
gained much more than / have lost." 

In this severe affliction Miss More preserved 
that calm submission to the will of God which 
always caused her to look upon her bereave- 
ments as so many just chastisements, bestowed 
by a benevolent hand, for the purpose of deep- 
ening her humility, and cutting loose the ties 
which bound her to' the world. " I find," she 
says, " not one reason for murmurs ; but many 
for thanksgiving. She was enabled, after a 
life of devotedness to God, to bear her dying 
testimony to his faithfulness and truth. I fee) 
thankful that she is removed from a world of 
pain and suffering, of sin and sorrow, to that 
blessed state purchased for her by Him who 
loved her; that she sleeps in Jesus, and that her 
last words were expressive of her Christian 
hope. Shall I mourn for such a death 1 And 
yet I cannot but mourn deeply. The remainder 
of my pilgrimage, however, must be short. I 
pray that I may be enabled to spend it better 
than I have done the past ; and I believe that 
she was taken from me in order to quicken my 
repentance and preparation. My chief earthly 
support was removed that I might lean more 
entirely on God." In another letter she re- 
marks : — " I can truly say that my grief has not 
been mixed with one murmuring thought. I 
kiss the rod, and adore the hand that employs 



142 MEMOIR OF lIANx\AH MORE. 

it. I bless 'God that she was spared to me so 
long ; that her last trial, though sharp, was 
short ; that she is spared from feeling for me 
what I wow feel for her; and though I must 
finish my journey alone, yet it is a very short 
portion which remains to be accomplished." 

The loss of this excellent woman was deeply 
deplored, not only by her surviving sister, but 
by all who knew her, and especially by the vil- 
lagers, who had for so many years been the 
objects of her affectionate solicitude. Her loss 
.was regarded as a common calamity, and she 
was, therefore, mourned with no ordinary grief. 
Several funeral sermons were preached for her 
in the neighbourhood, at each of which a very 
large company of clergymen attended, and the 
people about Barley Wood generally put on 
badges of mourning, and the parish schools for 
some time forbore to make application for their 
usual supplies of clothing and books. Surprised 
at this last circumstance, Miss More inquired 
of the Shipham schoolmaster, who replied : — 
" Why, madam, they be so cut up for the sad loss 
we have all sustained, that they have not heart 
to come." 

The death of this amiable and pious sister 
pressed heavily upon Miss More's spirits for 
some time, but she gradually recovered the 
natural tone of her mind, though her body con- 
tinued much enfeebled. Through the whole 
winter and spring she was so ill as scarcely to 
be able to leave her room, and seemed rather to 
retrograde than improve, until in the month of 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 143 

August she was brought, by a succession of 
alarming attacks, to the very gates of death. 
For many days no hopes were entertained for 
her recovery, and she herself supposed that she 
was about to leave the church miUtant, and join 
the church triumphant. 

In this situation Miss More felt how great 
was the support of those Christian principles 
which she had so long endeavoured to inculcate 
on the minds of others, which she had defended 
and enforced in her writings, and exemplified 
in her life. " What," she exclaimed, " should 
I do, at this trying season, if I had the work to 
begin ?" a question which it would be well for 
all to consider while yet -they are in health. 
On the night of the 12th Miss More was seized 
with an obstinate obstruction of the chest, and 
supposing herself dying, she caused the family 
to be called together. After repeated faintings 
she so far recovered as to be able to speak, 
when she broke out in these and other excla- 
mations of triumph : — " Thou wilt §how me 
the path of life ; in thy presence is fulness of 
joy, and at thy right hand there are pleasures 
for evermore." " All my trust is through grace ; 
all my hope is for mercy ; all I ask is accept- 
ance through Jesus Christ." 

Through the whole of her illness she pos- 
sessed that calm reliance and firm confidence 
which so wonderfully sustain the true Christian 
in the hour of suflering and trial, though she 
says she knew little of those triumphs which 
others had experienced on the near approach 



144 MEMOIR OF HAXXAII MORE. 

of death. Her mind, however, was continually 
calm, and her faith unwavering: not af doubt of 
her acceptance ever seems to have crossed her 
mind, no fear of death, no wish of recovery, no 
longing after the pleasures of the world. It 
was her delight to talk of the glories of heaven, 
and of the salvation provided through the Sa- 
viour. " It is delightful to know," she said to 
one of her friends, " that these our joys will be 
unspeakable and full of glory : rest in the bosom 
of God and the Saviour, and a full enjoyment 
of his presence, chiefly present themselves to 
my mind. The meeting of dear friends will, I 
should think, constitute a part of our felicity, 
though a very subordinate one : like Whiteiield, 
I think, we shall be apt to say, ' Stand back, 
and keep me not from the sight of the Saviour''" 
To one of the clergymen who prayed by her 
bedside she said : — " I thank God I have not 
an anxiety whether to live or die," and added, 
with energy, " there is peace and safety at the 
foot of the cross : blessed be his holy name, I 
am enabled to cast myself there, in a full, undi- 
vided, unqualified reliance on that blood that 
was shed upon.it." 

But Miss More's work was not yet done, 
and it pleased God to restore her to her friends, 
and to grant her again a comfortable degree of 
health. During this terrible illness her mind 
retained its strength to a degree almost pas^ 
belief ; as a wonderful evidence of which we 
may state that the preface to a new edition of 
her " Moral Sketches," consisting of a sketch 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 145 

of the character of the late king, George III., 
was composed and written by her while she 
was most feeble, and while her friends were 
despairing of her recovery. The circumstances 
are narrated in a letter to Miss Hubert, to ac- 
count for the supposed defects in the work. 
" In the worst of my illness," she says, " Cadell 
[son of the former] wrote to entreat me to write 
a preface to a new edition of ' Moral Sketches,' 
with a short tribute to our lamented king. My 
friend wrote him word it was utterly impos- 
sible, that I might as well attempt to fly as to 
write. A week after, supposing me to be bet- 
ter, he again renewed his entreaty. I was, 
however, not any better, but I fancied that what 
was difficult might not be impossible. So, 
having got every body out of the way, I fur- 
nished myself with pen, ink, and paper, which 
I concealed in my bed, and the next morning, 
in a high fever, with my pulse above a hundred, 
without having formed one thought, bolstered 
up, I began to scribble. I got on about seven 
pages, my hand being almost as incompetent as 
my head. I hid my scrawl,, and said not a 
word while my doctor and my friend wondered 
at my increased debility. After a strong opiate 
I next morning renewed my task of seven 
pages more, and delivered my almost illegible 
papers to my friend to transcribe and send 
away. I got well scolded, but I loved the king, 
and was carried through by a sort of affection- 
ate impulse ; so it stands as a preface to the 
seventh edition." 

10 



146 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

We can scarcely imagine any thing more 
wonderful than this achievement. Miss More 
was now seventy-five years of age, in the midst 
of a raging fever, her body enfeebled to the last 
extent by the ravages of disease ; and yet, un- 
der these circumstances, when an ordinary per- 
son would have been brooding in despondency 
over so deplorable a situation, she was enabled 
to write, in two successive days, no less thaa 
fourteen pages ol foolscap paper, on a subject 
which required thought, reflection, and labour. 
Surely the mind that could achieve such a vic- 
tory over time, debility, and disease, must have 
been cast in no ordinary mould ! 

Contrary to Miss More's expectations, her 
health continued to improve during the winter 
of 1820 and 21, and we soon find her bringing 
up the arrears of her correspondence, neither 
her wit nor vivacity being a whit diminished 
by her late severe trials. Among those with 
whom she held intercourse by letter, were still 
persons of all classes ; the high, the low ; the 
learned, the illiterate ; the old, the young. 
Miss More took an interest in the afHicted of 
whatever class ; her philanthropy was not con- 
fined to the precincts of her native island ; it 
looked abroad over the whole world. In the 
exercise of this boundless benevolence she held 
an intercourse with many in our own country, 
and among them were several of the deaf and 
dumb girls of the Hartford Asylum, Conn. 
Their correspondence was of a very simple 
kind, as the reader will see, for we cannot for- 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 147 

bear to make the following extract from a letter 
of Sophia Fowler, which, though not imme- 
diately connected with the narrative, will, we 
are sure, be interesting to the young American 
reader. 

" It gives me great pleasure to write to you, 
although I think we shall never see each other's 
face : but I do hope I shall meet you in heaven, 
where, how happy we shall be to see each 
other's face. I hope we shall make prepara- 
tion for death, and God will give us peace and 
happiness when we die. I was sorry to hear 
that you were sick, but I hope you are now bet- 
ter. I think how I live here a great many 
miles from you. * * * If you are in any pain 
I hope God will descend upon your soul in 
peace. Jesus Christ sees us always when we 
are in pain, and he sympathizes with us : then 
he will certainly bless us if we truly love and 
trust in him through faith. * * * May your 
heavenly Father bless you, and be always with 
you during your life. Although I write this 
letter to you, I hardly expect you will answer 
me, because I know that you are much engaged. 
I hope to pray to God for you." 

That Miss More's mind had not suffered ma- 
terially, either in consequence of age or dis- 
ease, is, we think, abundantly evident from the 
sprightliness and vigour of her correspondence. 
A friend had sent her Madame Neckar's " No- 
tice of the Character and Writings of Madame 
de Stael," requesting her opinion of its merits, 
which was given with the same clear discri- 



148 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

mination of judgment which characterized her 
mind at an earlier period. It will be observed, 
too, that her style retains all the e^se, elegance, 
and fluency of her younger days. " I have 
read this work," she says, " with mingled feel- 
ings of pain and pleasure. It indicates a kin- 
dred genius with the work it celebrates, a simi- 
larity of striking thoughts, brilliancy of style, 
and happy turn of expression ; the same ardour 
of feeling, the same generosity of sentiment. I 
wish my regard to truth would allow me to stop 
here ; but you insist on knowing my sentiments. 
It would be a satire on my own judgment and 
feelings not to allow that I am among the innu- 
merable admirers of Madame de Stael. And 
like the woman she celebrates, Madame Neck- 
ar writes elegantly, and even splendidly, but 
she has employed her eloquence to varnish over 
every thing in her relative's conduct and writ- 
ings. Religion, however, is the great point in 
Madame de Stael's character on which she in- 
sists : but these distinguished ladies have a re- 
ligion of their own ; not the Christian religion : 
humility is excluded ; there is no intimation of a 
fallen nature, of its restoration, of the renewal 
of the soul, of divine influences, &;c. It is, as 
Isaiah says, 'as when a hungry man dreameth 
and behold he eateth ; but he awaketh and be- 
hold his soul is empty.'" 

In another part of this letter she says : — " Per- 
haps if I had as much personal interest in de- 
fending genius as she has, I might have been 
tempted to treat it with greater lenity. I am a 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 149 

passionate admirer of the gifts of God, and 
whatever is beautiful in nature or exquisite in 
art, comes from him. They proceed from his 
goodness, but form no part of his essence. 
Nor can I conceive that the most enchanting 
beauties of nature, or the most splendid produc- 
tions of the fine arts, have any necessary con- 
nection with religion. Genius and talents are 
gifts of God ; they serve to adorn religion in 
her brightest beauty, but they are no part of 
herself: on the contrary, she has found some 
of her worst enemies among those who have 
b'een the most supremely gifted. Observe, I 
mean the religion of Christ, not that of Plato ; 
the religion of reality, not that of the beau-ideal. 
The most exquisite pictures and statues have been 
produced in those parts of Europe where pure re- 
ligion has made the least progress. Athens was 
once the most learned, and the most polished city 
in the world ; yet the eloquent preaching of Paul 
made but one convert in the whole Areopagus." 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Another attack of illness — Death of Mrs. Garrick — State 
of her health — Employment of time — Barley Wood school 
at Ceylon — Opinion of Scott's Novels — Wrington Bible 
Meeting — Publishes " Spirit of Prayer" — Great energy of 
mind. 

In the spring of 1822 Miss More suffered 
another of those severe attacks of illness which 
had so often admonished her of the great neces- 
sity of a constant preparation for death. For 



150 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

six months she was confined to her bed, and 
for more than a year she did not leave her 
room. But her sickness was not only very 
protracted, but also very dangerous, and few 
were so sanguine as to look for her recovery. 
It pleased God, however, after a period of great 
suffering, again to raise her up. 

During this long affliction her mind was 
stayed upon her Saviour, and through him she 
was enabled to preserve the same patience, 
peace, and confidence, which had hitherto 
marked her trials. " Were it in my power," 
she was wont to say, "to determine whether to 
live or die, and could I determine either by the 
lifting up of my hand, I would not dare to do 
it." Miss More felt that her home was in 
heaven ; her treasure and her heart were there ; 
and although, like the great apostle, she knew 
that " to live was Christ," yet she also felt that 
" to die was gain." "O, " said she, "that I had 
wings like a dove, for then would I fly away 
and be at rest : I would hasten my escape from 
the windy storm and tempests." And again : — 
" O what a morning will that be when I shall 
awake in endless joy ! When will it come ! 
That was not an unpremeditated assertion which 
Paul made, when he said nobly and truly: — 'I 
reckon that the sufferings of this present time 
are not worthy to be compared with the glory 
that shall be revealed in us.' " When at length 
favourable symptoms appeared, and her physi- 
cian expressed hopes of her recovery, she said, 
" I fear I am not thankful enough ; but suppose 



MEMOIR OF HANNaIi MORE. 151 

you were going a long journey to receive a 
large inheritance, would you not be grieved 
were you suddenly called back to receive two 
or three trifling sums, when you had nearly 
reached the end ?" 

One of her first letters, on her recovery, was 
addressed to Sir W. W. Pepys, her old and 
tried friend. In it she thus speaks of her ill- 
ness : — " I have been in bed six months with 
a fever as severe as it was durable. At my 
advanced time of life I was bled seven times in 
a few weeks, with other sharp discipline. The 
mercies of my heavenly Father during this trial 
have been great and numerous. Of the first 
sixty nights I passed forty without one hour's 
entire sleep, yet I had never one moment's de- 
lirium, and scarcely any discomposure." She 
then speaks of the general state of sickness 
and want, which existed at the time of her own 
afflictions, in the neighbourhood, and adds : — 
" Through your generous bounty I was enabled 
materially to mitigate these calamities. I had 
a little bag [containing money] pinned to my 
curtain, from which I sent to the sick, through 
the apothecary, the almost daily dole, [charity,] 
and I believe some lives were saved, and others 
were made more comfortable." 

In October she heard of the death of Mrs. 
Garrick, her early and enduring friend, who 
had gone down to the grave full of years. She 
thus notices the event in one of her letters : — 
" I was much affected yesterday with a report 
of the death of my ancient and valued friend 



152 MEMOIR •of HANNAH MORE. 

Mrs. Garrick. She was in her hundredth 
YEAR. I spent above twenty winters under her 
roof, and gratefully remember, not only her per- 
sonal kindness, but my first introduction, through 
her and her husband, into a society remarkable 
for rank, literature, and talents. Whatever was 
most distinguished in either, was to be found 
at their table. He was the very soul of con- 
versation." 

The state of Miss More's health may be besi 
ascertained by a quotation from another of her 
letters, written in November, 1823. "It is 
now," she says, " about two years since I have 
been down stairs, and I think about four years 
and a quarter since I have been in any house 
besides my own. I have, however, a pleasant 
prison, and am not anxious for a jail delivery." 
But notwithstanding her long confinement, and 
the feeble state of her body, she was not idle. 
Her large correspondence was still kept up> 
and Barley Wood was daily thronged with 
visiters from all quarters of th^ world. Her 
schemes of benevolence, too, were not con- 
tracted on account of her bodily inactivity, but 
were constantly enlarging, contrary to the gene- 
ral rule, as she advanced in age. 

Various repositories having been opened at 
Clifton and Bath for the benefit of certain cha- 
rities, a part of her leisure was employed in 
fabricating articles to aid them. It being known 
that these trifles had been prepared by a person 
so celebrated as Hannah More, they generally 
sold for large sums. On one occasion Sir 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 153 

Thomas Ackland purchased a pair of garters 
which shs had knit for one of the repositories, 
which he was glad to get by paying a crown, 
[a httle more than a dollar.] The circumstance 
having come to the knowledge of Miss More, 
she penned some sprightly lines, and addressed 
them to Sir Thomas, in which she spoke of the 
garters as one of the most faultless of her works. 
The conclusion of the poem is in these words : 

" Though some its want of ornament may blame, 
Utility, not splendour, was my aim. 
Not ostentatious I — for still I ween 
Its worth is rather to he felt than seen. 
Around \he feelings still it gently winds, 
If lost, no comfort the possessor finds ; 
Retired from view, it seeks to be obscure, 
The public gaze it trembles to endure. 
The sober moralist its use may find, 
Its object is not loose, it aims to bind. 
No creature suffers from its sight or touch, 
Can Walter Scott say more — can Byron say as much ? 
One tribute more, my friend, I seek to raise. 
You've given, indeed, a crown, give More — your praise. 

But it was not only for the repositories in the 
vicinity of Barley Wood that she was engaged 
in preparing these trifles. The American Board 
of Missions, having received a print of Miss 
More's residence, had a copy of it taken, and 
devoted the profits of the sale to the establish- 
ment of a school in Ceylon, which was to bear 
the name of Barley Wood : in order to aid their 
funds Miss More extended to them the benefit 
of her labours. " If,'' she says in one of her 
letters, " you saw my table on most days, you 
would think that, if I were not a minister of 
state, I was become at least a clerk in a public 



154 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

office. These petty businesses often prevent 
my writing to those dear friends with whom it 
would be my delight to have more intercourse 
I find, however, a good deal of time to work 
with my hands, while Miss Frowd reads for the 
entertainment of my head. The learned labours 
of my knitting-needle are now accumulating to 
be sent to America, to the Missionary Society, 
who will sell them there, and send the proceeds 
to the Barley Wood school at Ceylon. So that 
you see I am still good for something." 

She also occupied much time in reading, 
which she seems to have enjoyed with her 
usual relish, and the large volumes that she 
read is truly wonderful. Her taste did not run 
to the light and frivolous trash which, in her 
day as well as our own, was constantly teeming 
from the press ; but she delighted in those solid 
and instructive works which enlightened the 
understanding and improved the heart. Indeed 
she has in several places borne her testimony 
in the strongest terms against the great evil of 
what is called light reading. She censures 
not only those inferior novels which have 
nothing to recommend them but the fact that 
they are fashionable, but also those of a higher 
class, such for instance as emanated from the 
pen of Sir Walter Scott. She acknowledged 
their high merits as works of genius, but re- 
garding time as a sacred trust for which we 
must give an account, she thought that it should 
not be squandered in reading books whose 
highest claims consisted in doing no harm. 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. ^ 155 

" Let those who consider that if our time is in- 
deed to be accounted for as scrupulously as any 
other talents with which we may be intrusted, 
how will their reckoning stand in the great day 
of accounts ? In the case of some, time is al- 
most the only talent they have. Such ought to 
be especially careful that this one be rightly 
employed, as we have an awful lesson of the 
danger of unprofitableness." 

It had been the custom of Miss More to give 
all her influence, and to aid in other respects, 
the operations of tha British Bible Society, and 
on the occasion of the Wrington Anniversary, 
to entertain the guests from a distance. These 
not unfrequently amounted to more than a hun- 
dred, and on one occasion, which she names, 
to one hundred and sixty. For some time she 
had not been able to do this, but in the year 
1824 her health was so much improved that 
they were again invited to share her hospitality. 
She was, however, unable to attend the meet- 
ing, or even to dine with the guests, but she 
saw most of the company in her room after din- 
ner, where they spent several hours in edifying 
conversation. Bishop Chase, of Ohio, was 
among the number, and offered the parting 
prayer. In about a month after this interesting 
occasion Miss More was again laid on a bed 
of sickness, where she viras detained for many 
weeks with but little expectation of her reco- 
very. But old age had not broken her spirits, 
or overcome her patience. Her sick bed was 
a scene of instruction to all who had the privi- 



156 ^ MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

# 

lege to see her there. Ever ready to depart, 
she did not look upon the approaches of our 
last enemy with terror ; the sting of death had 
been destroyed, and she waited with patience 
the time when her earthly afflictions should 
draw to a close, and permit her to enter on 
those bright scenes of felicity which she was 
confident awaited her beyond the grave. 

As soon as she began to recover, and before 
she was able to quit her bed for any length of 
time, she commenced making selections from 
her works on the subject pf prayer, which she 
brought together into a little volume, making 
occasional additions and alterations, and pre- 
fixing a short preface. Not expecting to live 
but a few days, this little book was bequeathed 
to her friends. On its being announced, with 
the name of the author attached, the whole 
edition was bespoken, and a second edition was 
in preparation before she received a single copy. 
This second edition was followed within a few 
weeks by a third. The work was received 
with the highest commendation by her pious 
friends, one of whom well observes that it was 
a very appropriate and happy finish to her la- 
bours. Sir W. W. Pepys, who, like herself, 
had almost finished the journey of life, and was 
some two or three years older than Miss More, 
received it with particular delight. " Such an 
animated spirit of piety runs through the whole 
of it," he says, " that not to have greatly re- 
lished it, would have impeached one's taste 
even more than one's principles. I hope to 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 157 

have it always upon my table, and to read it 
over and over again as long as I shall wish to 
cherish the spirit of piety, which I pray God 
may be as long as I live." 

Another pious friend says : — " I have perused 
with great interest your 'Spirit of Prayer.' It 
was well, instead of engaging in anything savour- 
ing of novelty or originality, to select and place 
in the public hand that part of the spiritual ar- 
mour which is so prominently necessary to 
bring into use and efficacy all the other parts 
of the sacred panoply which you have been la- 
bouring so long to recommend for the purpose 
of Christian warfare." Mr. Stevens also wrote 
her a long congratulatory letter, in which he 
expatiated largely on the importance and plea- 
sure of prayer. After the publication of this 
little work, in 1825, Miss More's health con- 
tinued to improve, and for two or three years it 
remained perhaps better than it had been for 
several years. 

Her little work on prayer is remarkable as 
being the last of her publications, and the la- 
bour of one who had already entered upon her 
eighty-first year. It is a striking example of 
that energy of character which she possessed 
in so remarkable a degree. This peculiarity is 
well described by herself in one of her letters. 
" Though I have not done much," she says, 
" yet with a sickly life, an annual dangerous 
fever of long duration, if I had been sober and 
considerate I should have done nothing. My 
thick volume, ' Moral Sketches, of more than 



158 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

five hundred pages, was first thought of in Ja- 
nuary, and entirely written, printed, and pub- 
lished in the end of August. In September of the 
same year dear Patty died. Could I have fore- 
seen this, or had I delayed the work, it would 
aeA'^er have been written. So much in favour of 
rashness." Miss More never indulged in pro- 
crastination ; the moment that any practicable 
work suggested itself to her mind, that moment 
she set about it. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Death of old friends — Barley Wood frequented by dis- 
senters — Great vivacity of mind — Readiness at composition. 

Miss More's old friends, like the ancient 
and venerable trees of a stately forest, had, one 
after another, fallen before the arch-destroyer, 
until she was left almost a solitary monument 
of an age which had passed away. In 1S25 
she was called to part with another of her old 
companions, that excellent man, faithful friend, 
elegant and accomplished scholar, Sir W. W. 
Pepys. He had been one of her earliest lite- 
rary acquaintances, and had figured in her little 
poem, " The Bas Bleu." At a later period he 
had become religious, and was one of her most 
accomplished and faithful correspondents. Miss 
More thus narrates her feelings on the occa- 
sion, in a letter to Mr. Wilberforce: — "My 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 159 

health, through the great mercy of God, is mar- 
vellous, all things considered ; but I am feeling 
the common effect of those who live to an ad- 
vanced age, that almost all my contemporaries 
are dropping before me. In one month I can 
reckon the bishopof Salisbury, my valuable friend 
the Rev. Mr. Jones, and a loss that afflicted 
me very deeply, that of Sir William W. Pepys. 
We had lived in undiminished friendship near 
fifty years : he was a scholar and a gentleman, 
and one of the principal ornaments of the select 
society in which I passed so many pleasant 
days. He was the Laclius of my now forgot- 
ten little poem, the ' Bas Bleu.' Fifteen or 
twenty years ago, when I gave up London en- 
tirely, we continued our intercourse by letters, 
and I had the great satisfaction of remarking 
his gradual advance in piety. I had made him 
a present of a fine Bible, marking those portions 
on which I wished him more particularly to 
dwell. He studied it constantly. His letters 
for several past years, without losing any of 
that classic elegance for which he was remark- 
able, were characterized by a spirit of devotion 
truly gratifying. His family character was ad- 
mirable. His sons almost worshipped him. 
For the last seven years he has been a bounti- 
ful benefactor to my poor, and my schools. I 
have no doubt he is accepted through Him who 
loved him and gave himself for him.'* 

Miss More seems to have sensibly realized 
these losses, and to have reflected much upon 
her peculiar situation in consequence of them. 



160 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

In another letter she remarks : — " I can truly 
say that I have not one contemporary left. My 
youthful associates, the Johnsons, the Garricks, 
the Burkes, the Bryants, the Reynolds, &c., 
I do not reckon, as they were much older than 
myself: of my second set, the bishop of Dur- 
ham and Lady Cremorne were the last, both 
ninety-four : of your period (alas ! poor H. 
Thornton !) there remain yourself, to me a host, 
the Gisbornes, the Babingtons, my old accom- 
plished friend the bishop of Bristol, &c. In a 
letter to Lady Sparrow she continues the sub- 
ject : — " My contemporaries," she says, " are 
dropping away very fast. In one month only, 
the bishop of Salisbury, the dean of Canterbury, 
and my old and accomplished friend Sir W. W. 
Pepys. The next death within the month, of 
my aged friends, was that of the venerable cler- 
gyman of Shipham, who in sixty-one years had 
never missed his Sunday duty but four times. 
All the clergymen for many miles around at- 
tended him to the grave. I was so fortunate as 
to obtain this little living for him thirty-five 
years ago." In another letter she speaks of 
no less than thirty physicians who had attended 
her at different times in her life, all of whom 
were in their graves. 

She had outlived her age, and it must have 
been a great satisfaction to see, from her ele- 
vated position, the progress of society during 
her time. A new race had grown up around 
her, and as it were under an influence which 
she had greatly aided in producing. The la 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 161 

bours of Wesley, and Whitefield, and Wilber- 
force, in conjunction with those which she had 
put forth, had, indeed, wrought a pleasing 
change in all classes ; and to her, who lived so 
much in familiar intercourse with the higher 
circles, the change in the conduct of the great 
was particularly pleasing. " It is," she says 
in a letter to Mr. Huber, " a singular satisfaction 
to me that I have lived to see such an increase 
of genuine religion among the higher classes of 
society. Mr. Wilberforce and I agree that 
where we knew one instance thirty years ago, 
there are now a dozen, or more. It is the 
Lord's doings, and it is marvellous in our eyes." 
We have said elsewhere that Miss More ad- 
hered steadily to the Established Church ; we 
might have added, that she was both in princi- 
ple and practice a thorough Churchwoman, ad- 
hering to the doctrines and forms of the Church 
of England with the greatest punctiliousness, 
and refusing to have any connection whatever 
with any thing that was considered irregular. 
Still she possessed very enlarged views of 
Christian charity, and to all the humble follow- 
ers of the cross both her heart and her house 
were open. Barley Wood was, therefore, fre- 
quently made cheerful by the presence of the 
learned and pious of different denominations of 
Christians. Where true piety existed Miss 
More inquired not with what class of professors 
it was associated. At one time she says : — 
" Daniel Wilson has been staying here several 
days and nights, O how you would enjoy his 
U 



162 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

devout energy, the heartfelt and heart- awaken- 
ing piety of his prayers, and the interesting 
manner in which he expounds the Scriptures !" 
At another time she writes : — " Early this 
morning arrived dear old Rowland Hill, and 
another saintly visiter." She also speaks of 
Dr. Marshman, the Baptist missionary, and 
many others who were dissenters from the Es- 
tablished Church. She mentions Mr. Wesley 
with great respect, and names a message which 
she received from him through one of her sis- 
ters. " Tell her," said he, " to live in the 
world ; there is the sphere of her usefulness ; 
they will not let us come nigh them." 

The great reformation which was commenced 
under Mr. Wesley, and which resulted in so 
much good to all denominations of Christians, 
by diffusing more widely the principles of evan- 
gelical piety, reached, at first, comparatively 
few of the higher classes. The opprobrium 
which was attached to the irregularities, as they 
were called, of Mr. Wesley and his followers, 
prevented that access to the great, the gay, and 
the fashionable, which, in other circumstances, 
these excellent men might have enjoyed. This 
Mr, Wesley knew, and having observed the in- 
fluence which Miss More's eloquent pen was 
exerting over a class which his own efforts had 
failed to reach, he gave the judicious advice 
recorded above. 

We have had occasion before to speak of the 
wonderful vivacity and sprightliness of Miss 
More's mind ; this quality, although she had 



MEMOIR OF HAxNNAH MORE. 163 

now reached her eighty-second year, seemed to 
be retained with all its youthful vigour, as is 
evident in almost every production of her pen. 
It was, however, scarcely less remarkable than 
the faciUty with which she gave it expression : 
as an evidence of which we quote the follow- 
ing amusing lines, which were taken down by 
a friend as they fell from her lips, while a lu- 
dicrous scene, which was passing before her, 
called them forth. She afterward made some 
corrections in the lines, and sent them in a let- 
ter to Mr. Hart Davis. " I fear," she says in 
this letter, " you will say I am too old to write 
nonsense, but I plead an excuse, that I am ap- 
proaching my second childhood, when nonsense 
is almost as pardonable as in the first. The 
scene which elicited it having just passed un- 
der my window, the foolish thought struck me, 
and except some trifling additions made in 
committing it to paper, you have it as my friend 
took it down. It was spoken, not written, on 
seeing the body of a large pig which had been 
butchered dragged up the hill." 



" The saddest sight that e'er was seen 
Was piggy rolling up the green ! 
Though dragg'd, he still would roll alone 
Downward, like Sisyphus's stone. 
This pig, as good as e'er was sold, 
Was worth — not quite his weight in gold. 
That pork's unwholesome, doctors tell us, 
Though of the fact I'm somewhat jealous, 
And I believe, beyond all question, 
Baoon is sov'reign for digestion ; 
For this one cause, among a few, 
['m glad I was not born a Jew. 



164 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

No quadruped, like piggy, claims 

To give his flesh such various names. 

The calf and sheep half starve the glutton, 

By yielding only veal and mutton; 

While all extol the liberal swine, 

For griskin and the savoury chine : 

How often does the brawny flitch 

Adorn the table and eyirich : 

The stately ham and rasher small, 

Are liked in every state by all : 

Who will confess they see no good in 

The poignant sausage or black pudding 1 

The spare-rib, sweet-bone, ears and snout 

My bill of fare will quite make out ; 

For I disdain my song to close 

By stooping to the pettitoes. 

He ne'er was seen to dance a jig 

Though a genteel and graceful pig ; 

Yet when he round my field would prance, 

It might be call'd a country dance. 

Those men who dancing lives have led 

Are worse than nothing when they're dead ; 

While piggy's goodness ne'er appears, 

Till closed his eyes and deaf his ears. 

Though feeding spoil'd his shape and beauty, 

Yet feeding was in him a duty ; 

In spite of this reproach or that, 

'Twas his sole duty to grow fat. 

Death was to him no awful sentence, 

No need for sorrow or repentance : 

How many a gourmand, stout and big, 

Might envy thy last hour, O pig ! 

From ray Stye, Barley Wood, March 16, 1826. 

Soon after, in a letter to Dr. Wilson, who 
had complained of turns of depression, she sent 
some lines, beginning as follows : — 

" Lord ! when dejected I appear, 
And love is half absorb'd in fear 
E'en then I know I'm not forgot, 
Thou'rt present, though I see thee nets 
Thy boundless mercy's still the same. 
Though I am cold, nor feel the flame ; 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 165 

Though dull and hard my sluggish sense, 
Faith still maintains its evidence. 
O would thy cheering beams so shine, 
That I might always feel thee mine." 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Removal from Barley Wood — Causes of removal — Inci- 
dents of the removal — Residence at Clifton — Mental decay 
— State of her mind — Incidents of her last hours — Death. 

Barley Wood, the delightful residence of 
Miss More, was endeared to her by a thousand 
delightful associations and recollections. It 
had been built to suit her taste, had grown into 
luxuriance and beauty under her own eye ; its 
flowers, and groves, and shrubbery, had been 
planted by her own hand ; it was ornamented by 
nionuments raised to the memory of her own 
dear and valued friends. Here for years had 
been her enjoyments ; here she had closed the 
eyes of her departed sisters ; here she had 
gathered together, on every hand, mementoes of 
affection intimately connected with the bright- 
est periods of her life. But notwithstanding 
these strong ties. Miss More, at a very advanced 
age, when local attachments are the strongest, 
and the mind clings with particular tenacity to 
the past, had the courage to change her abode, 
and to yield up her flowers and shrubs, and 
groves and walks, and transfer the possession 
into other hands. 

Barley Wood had long been, as it were, the 
court of literature and piety ; and latterly it had 



166 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

been thronged almost continually by visiters 
from most parts of the world. Of the immense 
number of persons which she entertained from 
day to day, the reader will be able to form some 
idea by the following extract from one of her 
letters : — " Retirement," she says, " is a thing 
that I know only by name. I think Miss Frowd 
says that I saw eighty persons last week, and 
it is commonly the same every week. I know 
not how to help it. If my guests are old, I see 
them out of respect ; if young, I hope I may do 
them a little good ; if they come from a distance, 
I feel as if I ought to see them on that account; 
if near home, my neighbours would be jealous 
of my seeing strangers and excluding them. 
My levecy however, is from twelve o'clock to 
three, so that I get my mornings and evenings 
to myself, except now and then an old friend 
steals in quietly for a night or two." 

With such a constant pressure of visiters, it 
is very evident that Miss More must have been 
obliged to keep a large establishment, and at 
her time of life she was -but poorly fitted to look 
into, or prevent the extravagance and waste, to 
say nothing of the dishonesty of her household. 
The natural tolerance of her disposition had, in 
her old age, given way to indulgence, and her 
domestic government had, therefore, degenerated 
into a looseness and negligence which put it 
into the power of her servants to take any ad- 
vantage which they might desire. They had 
not been slow in availing themselves of the 
misplaced confidence of their indulgent mistress, 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 167 

and, taking advantage of her long confinement, 
had carried on a system of the most wanton ex- 
travagance and dishonesty, so that she found 
herself obHged to take some decisive measure, 
or submit to total ruin. 

Under these circumstances, painful as was 
the alternative, she did not long hesitate. Know- 
ing that, at her age, when even " the grasshop- 
per is a burden," she was totally unfit to look 
after the discipline of her large household, she 
resolved to quit Barley Wood, and at once re- 
duce her cares and expenses. This resolution, 
once taken, she proceeded to put into practice, 
and the necessary arrangements having been 
made, she removed, on the 18th of April, 1828, 
at the age of eighty-three, to Windsor Terrace, 
where she remained till death relieved her from 
the cares and responsibilities of this mortal 
state. 

The effort was, indeed, a great one. " This 
heavy blow," she says, " has overwhelmed me. 
I strive and earnestly pray for divine support 
and direction ; but such is the variety of diffi- 
culties which await me for the next month that 
I sink under the thought of them." As the day 
approached for her departure from Barley Wood, 
her friends became exceedingly anxious for the 
result. It was dreary and cold, many of her 
neighbours came to exchange sympathies with 
her, and to witness the scene. Assisted by 
Miss Frowd, her constant attendant and kind 
friend, she left the room in which she had been 
so many years confined, descended the stairs, 



168 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

walked for a few minutes around the room in 
which were hung the portraits of most of her 
old friends, was assisted into her carriage, cast 
behind her, over her endeared bowers^ one pen- 
sive, parting look, and took her leave for ever : 
remarking, as the carriage rolled away, " I am, 
like Eve, driven out of paradise, but, not like 
Eve, by angels." 

Removed to Clifton, Miss More soon found 
herself very comfortable, and much relieved 
from a pressure of cares. Her friends had 
taken the precaution to engage for her an ele- 
gant house, fitted up with every convenience, 
though on a scale somewhat reduced from that 
of Barley Wood. Here she carried the same 
contented and cheerful mind, and, surrounded 
with familiar faces, kindness, and attention, 
soon began to feel herself at home. 

In a letter to Mr. Wilberforce, dated Windsor 
Terrace, October 27, 1828, she gives so good an 
account of her new situation that we shall in- 
sert nearly her whole letter. " I am," she 
says, " diminishing my worldly cares. I have 
sold Barley Wood, and have just parted with 
the copy right to Cadell of those few of my 
writings which I had not sold him before. I 
have exchanged the eight pampered minions 
for four sober servants. I have greatly lessened 
my house expenses, which enables me to main- 
tain my schools and enlarge my charities. My 
schools alone, with clothing, rents, &;c., cost 
me jC250 [over eleven hundred dollars] a year. 
Dear, good Miss Frowd looks after them, though 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 169 

we are removed much further from them. As 
I have sold my carriage and horses, I want no 
coachman ; as I have no garden, I want no 
gardener. My removal here has been provi- 
dentially directed to my good. I have two 
pious clergymen, whom I call my chaplains, 
and who frequently devote an evening to ex- 
pound and pray with my family, and uniformly 
on Saturdays. My most kind and skilful phy- 
sician. Dr. Carrick, who used to have twelve 
miles to come to me, has now not much above 
two hundred yards. As to your kind visits, we 
can give you two beds, and one for a female 
servant : I am sorry I can do no more. The 
house, though good, furnishes few conveniences. 
We have no servants' hall, of course no second 
table ; but we are surrounded with hotels, lodg- 
ing houses, &c. I am expecting soon to see 
ray much valued friend, Mr. Huber, and his 
wife, from Geneva. He is a man of great ta- 
lents and piety. I owe him much. He has 
translated many of my works into French, and 
is now going on with the ' Essay on St. Paul.' 
It gratifies me that his translation of the * Spirit 
of Prayer' is now circulating in Paris. Miss 
Frowd desires her best respects. She is my 
great earthly treasure. She joins to sincere 
piety great activity and useful knowledge. She 
has the entire management of my family, and 
is very judicious in the common offices of life. 
She reads well, and she reads much to me. I 
have much more to say, and much, I trust, to 
hear when we meet. May the God of all grace 



170 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

and goodness preserve you, my very deai 
friend." 

Up to this period Miss More had discovered 
little or no symptoms of mental decay; but it 
soon became evident that the fine fabric of that 
mind which had so often shed its lustre on the 
world was yielding to the pressure of accumu- 
lated years. Her memory, formerly so reten- 
tive, cQased to serve her with its usual fidelity ; 
she fell intt) the error, common with old people, 
of repeating the same anecdote to the same 
person ; her health was more broken, and she 
was seldom free from some attack of disease ; 
her smell and taste had long since deserted her, 
and her hearing was considerably impairea. 
But in the midst of this decay of nature, she 
continued to ripen for her great and last change. 
Religion was the subject of her constant medi- 
tation, and the theme on which she most de- 
lighted to converse. Her schools and her cha- 
rities, also, had a share in her attention to the 
latest period of her life. It is a singular trait 
in her character, a trait which could only have 
been produced by her Christian faith, that her 
benevolence increased with her years, and be- 
came more and more expansive as she drew 
near the close of life. The diminution of her 
income, arising from the prodigality of her 
household, might well have formed a plea ror 
the diminution of her charities ; but with an eve 
fixed on the " recompense of reward," she took 
such a course as insured their continuance, 
though at the expense of many of those little 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 171 

pleasures which custom had rendered some- 
what necessary, and which, at her age, could 
not be given up without a painful conflict. 

In the autumn of 1832 her mind received a 
farther shock from the death of Miss Roberts, 
an esteemed and intimate friend, to whom she 
was much attached. But aside from all causes 
of this nature, it was evident that she was now 
rapidly declining. She took cold apparently 
without exposure, her strength diminished, her 
mind was occasionally a little bewildered, and 
a slight fever continued to waste away her ema- 
ciated frame. In this declining state she con- 
tinued for about ten months, without complaint 
or murmur, quietly awaiting her release from a 
world in which she would now have no enjoy- 
ment, save in the anticipations of that to which 
she was rapidly hastening. Here all her de- 
sire was centred, not, indeed, an impatient de- 
sire, but a longing after that incorruptible and 
glorious inheritance which she firmly believed 
awaited her. 

As she approached the termination of her 
career, her thoughts dwelt more and more on 
visions of eternity, and notwithstanding her oc- 
casional wanderings she was always coherent 
and consistent on whatever related to spiritual 
things. Prayer was the delight and Ufe of her 
soul. Ejaculations from the Psalms and other 
portions of Scripture were almost continually 
upon her lips, and her memory, though much 
impaired in all matters relating to passing 
events, served her with its accustomed faithful- 



172 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

ness in these quotations. To those who sur- 
rounded her, she was wont to say, " Grow in 
grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus 
Christ." When very sick, she said, " What 
can I not do with Christ ? I know that my 
Redeemer liveth. Happy, happy are those 
who are expecting to be together in another 
world. The thought of that world lifts the mind 
above itself. O the love of Christ, the love 
of Christ!" She talked much of the mercies 
which had been so bountifully dealt out to her 
through a long life. To a friend at parting she 
said, " I hope we shall meet in glory." In this 
frame of mind, breathing devout prayers, and 
looking earnestly for her deliverance, she con- 
tinued to the last. In September, 1833, her 
appetite, which had hitherto been sufficient for 
her condition, suddenly failed, and a total rejec- 
tion of nourishment led unavoidably to the ter- 
mination of her lengthened struggle. For the 
last week she scarcely seemed to recognise 
any of those around her. The closing scene is 
thus related by her attendant : — 

" On the morning of Friday, the 6th of Sep- 
tember, 1833, we offered up our accustomed 
prayers by her bedside. She was silent, and 
apparently attentive. All the time her hands 
were devoutly lifted up. Throughout the day 
she underwent but little change. I sat watch' 
ing her in the evening from eight till nearly 
nine. Her face was smooth and glowing; 
there was an unusual brightness in its expres- 
sion. She smiled, and, endeavouring to raise 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 173 

herself from her pillow, reached out her arms, 
as if catching at something. While making 
this effort, she called out very plainly, ' Patty,' 
the name of her last beloved sister, exclaiming 
at the same time, ' Joy !' She then sank into 
the same quiet and tranquil state as before 
She remained thus for about an hour, when Dr. 
Carrick came. At ten the symptoms of speedy 
departure could not be doubted ; her pulse be- 
came fainter and fainter; at twelve it became 
almost extinct. She looked then very serene, 
and there was nothing but the gentle breathing 
of infant sleep. She survived the night, and 
continued till a few minutes after one, when I 
saw the last gentle breath escape, and one 
more was added to that ' multitude which no 
man can number, who sing the praises of God 
and the Lamb for ever.' " 

Thus died Hannah More, September 7, 1833, 
in the eighty-ninth year of her age. Her life 
had been long, and, in many respects, singu- 
larly happy. No person was ever blessed with 
more kind or faithful friends, or, in a situation 
so responsible, ever had to contend with fewer 
enemies. Her life was one of great activity 
and usefulness, and was spent in the service 
of her fellow-creatures and her God. Her 
death was that of calm confidence, of firm reli- 
ance upon the Saviour for salvation. She may 
justly be said to have been an ornament to her 
sex and to the world. With but few faults, she 
had many great and ennobling virtues, and 
she has left the impress of her fine mind upon 



174 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

the age in which she lived, and her influence 
will probably be felt down to the very end of 
time. 



CHAPTER XX. 

Funeral — Tablet to her memory — Peculiar notions — Per- 
son and manners — Benevolence — Sums bequeathed by will 
— Description of Barley Wood. 

On the 13th of September the remains of this 
excellent woman were deposited by the side 
of her sisters, near Wrington church, and, in 
accordance with her desire, the funeral was 
plain and unostentatious. As the procession 
passed through Bristol the bells were tolled, 
and, about a mile from Wrington, it was joined 
by most of the gentlemen in the neighbourhood : 
nay, for a considerable distance from the church 
the road on either hand was crowded with vil- 
lagers, bearing badges of mourning, and eager 
to catch a last glimpse of all that remained of 
their departed benefactress. At the entrance 
of the village the solemn procession was headed 
by a large number of clergymen in their epis- 
copal robes, and was joined by more than two 
hundred children from her schools. The scene 
was most affecting, especially in the church, 
which was of course greatly crowded. Among 
the number present were fifteen old men, who 
had been provided with mourning at her parti- 
cular desire. 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 175 

In the new church of St. Philip, Bristol, a 
monumental tablet has been erected to her me- 
mory, by voluntary subscription, bearing upon it 
the following inscription : — 

SACRED 

TO THE MEMORY OF 

HANNAH MORE. 

She was born in the parish of Stapleton, near Bristol, 

A. D. 1745, 

and died at Clifton, September 7th, A. D. 1833. 

Endowed with great intellectual powers, 

and early distinguished by the success 

of her literary labours, 

she entered the world under circumstances 

tending to fix her affections on its vanities ; 

but, instructed in the school of Christ 

to form a just estimate of the real end of human 

existence, 

she chose the better part, 

and consecrated her time and talents 

to the glory of God and the good of her fellow-creatures, 

in a life of practical piety and diffusive beneficence. 

Her numerous writings in support of religion and order, 

at a crisis when both were rudely assailed, 

were equally edifying to readers of all classes ; 

at once delighting the wise, 

and instructing the ignorant and simple. 

In the eighty-ninth year of her age, 

beloved by her friends, and venerated by the public, 

she closed her career of usefulness, 

in humble reliance on the mercies of God, 

through faith in the merits of her Redeemer. 

Her mortal remains are deposited in a vault in this 

church-yard, 

which also contains those of her four sisters, 

who resided with her at 

Barley Wood, in this parish, her favourite abode, and 



176 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

who actively co-operated in her unwearied acts of 
Christian benevolence : 
Mary More died 18th April, 1813, aged 75 years. 
EUzabeth More died 14th June, 1816, aged 76 years. 
Sarah More died 17th May, 1817, aged 74 years. 
Martha More died 14th September, 1819, aged 69 years. 

This monument is erected out of a subscription 

for a public memorial to Hannah More, 

of which 

the greater proportion is devoted to the erection of a 

school, in the 

populous and destitute out-parish of St. Philip and Jacob, 

Bristol, , 

to the better endowment of whose district church 

she bequeathed the residue of her property. 

In bringing our narrative to a close we may- 
remark that Miss More's notions were im- 
bibed in the English school. With all her love 
of the poor, and none ever loved them more, 
she had never the remotest wish to raise them, 
as the phrase is, above their condition. All 
Jier efforts were bent on bettering their condi- 
tion, but not on changing it. She had the most 
scrupulous regard for the castes of society in 
which she had been bred, and none of the en- 
larged ideas of liberty and equality which are 
so peculiarly the blessing of our own free coun- 
try. In short, she was, in the strictest sense 
of the word, an English woman, and her notions 
of benevolence and kindness were all formed in 
the school of aristocracy — a circumstance of 
which it may be proper to remind the American 
reader, though, with her peculiar education, 
and under the circumstances in which she lived, 
it should detract nothing from her worth. 



MEMOIR OF IIANN^i MORE. 177 

In person Miss More was about the middle 
size, and her figure rather slender. Her ap- 
pearance was always interesting, and in conver- 
sation she was often in the highest degree ani- 
mated. Her dress was rather plain, but re- 
markable for neatness and simplicity. She 
wore no jewels, and avoided both expense and 
singularity in the choice of her wardrobe. Her 
manners were without ostentation, simple and 
kind. She was accessible to all, and had the 
singular art of saying much without seeming to 
engross more than her share of the conversa- 
tion. Her great wit was entirely subordinate to 
her good nature, and her piety controlled all the 
passions and tempers of her mind. 

But, after all, the greatness of Miss More, 
and the veneration of posterity for her charac- 
ter, rest on her Christian philanthropy. Every 
effort for the benefit of mankind was sure to be 
seconded by her, and every institution calcu- 
lated to advance Christian morals or diffuse 
Christian light, to secure her warm support ; 
while, at the same time, she neglected not to 
sympathize with individual cases of distress, 
and to extend a hand to their relief. The sums 
which she had expended from her own income, 
and which, through her great influence, she 
had obtained from others to be appropriated to 
the same benevolent objects, were immense : 
and the single fact that her household establish- 
ment was reduced, at an advanced period of her 
life, for the purpose of enlarging her charities, 
should never be overlooked in making an esti- 
12 



178 MEMOIR (JF HANNAH MORE. 

mate of 'her character. But notwithstanding 
these munificent gifts, her philanthropy ceased 
not with her life. Besides leaving to each of 
her old pensioners, at Wrington, £1 each, and 
bestowing a considerable sum on the new 
church of St. Philip, at Bristol, she bequeathed, 
by will, the following princely sums to the be- 
nevolent purposes named : — 



To the Bristol Infirmary £1,000 

Anti.Slavery Society 500 

London Pious Clergy 500 

London Clerical Education Society 100 

Moravian Missionary Society 200 

Welsh College 400 

Bristol Clerical Education Society 100 

Hibernian Society ^00 

Reformation Society 200 

Religious Tract Society 150 

Irish Scripture Reading Society 150 

Burmese Mission 200 

Society for the Conversion of the Jews 200 

Society for printing the Scriptures ) ion o n 

at Serampore ^ 

Baptist Missionary Society 100 

London Seamen's Bible Society .. 100 

Liverpool Seamen's Bible Society 100 

London Missionary Society 100 

Society for printing the Hebrew > i nn i n 

Scriptures .... ] lUU J U 

British and Foreign Bible Society 1,000 

Church Missionary Society 1,000 

Society for Educating Clergymen's > nnn n n 

Daughters S 

Diocess of Ohio 200 

Trustees of the New Church at > lezn n n 

Mangotsfield \ ^^^ ^ ^ 

Bristol Strangers' Friend Society ; 100 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 179 

To the Bristol Society for the Relief of ) ^jgO 
Small Debtors ^ 

Bristol Penitentiary 

Bristol Orphan Society 

Bristol Philosophical Institution . . 
London Strangers' Friend Society 
Commissioners of Foreign Missions 
in America, toward the school at 
Ceylon, called "Barley Wood," 

Newfoundland School Society 

Society for the Distressed Vaudois 

Clifton Dispensary 

Bristol District for Visiting the Poor 

Irish Society 

Sailors' Home Society 

Christian Knowledge Society 

Bristol Misericordia Society 

Bristol Samaritan Society 

Bristol Temple Infant School 

Prayer-Book and Homily Society 

London Lock Hospital 

London Refuge for the Destitute . . 

Gaelic School ', .... 

Society for Female Schools in India 

Keynsham School 

Cheddar School 

For books for Ohio 

Bristol and Clifton Female Anti- 
Slavery Society 

Clifton Lying-in Charity 

Clifton Infant School 

CHfton National School 

Clifton Female Hibernian Society 

Temple Poor ..., 

For Pews in the Temple Church 

Bristol Harmonica 

Edinburgh Sabbath Schools 

Shipham Female Club 

Cheddar Female Club 

Poor Printers' Fund 



100 


100 


100 


100 


100 


100 


100 


100 


100 


100 


100 


50 


50 


30 


50 


50 


50 


50 


50 


50 


50 


50 


50 


50 


50 


50 


50 


50 


50 


50 


20 


20 


50 


20 9 


20 



180 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

To the Shipham Poor i?50 

»' Minister of Wrington, for distribution ) ofk a o 

among the Poor .. .. \ -^^ ^^ ^ 

«» Minister of Cheddar, for distribution ) on o 

among the Poor ) 

" Minister of Nailsea, for the Poor 5 

«» The Kildare School Society, DubHn 300 



;e9,675 



A short time before this excellent woman 
quitted her residence at Barley Wood, Dr. 
Sprague, of Albany, in a visit to England, had 
the good fortunr to have an interview with her» 
at her delightful retreat, which he has made the 
subject of an interesting article in the Christian 
Keepsake, for 1838. He had just before seen 
her friend Mr. Wilberforce, and had brought 
from him a letter of introduction. We cannot 
better conclude this brief memoir than by quot- 
ing a portion of this article : — 

" Within a few days after this delightful visit 
at Highwood Hill, [Mr. Wilberforce's,] I was 
passing a short time at Bristol, and availed my- 
self of the opportunity of riding out to Barley . 
Wood, distant I think about nine miles, the far- 
famed residence of Hannah More. The morn- 
ing was fine, the country exceedingly beautiful, 
my company altogether agreeable, and every 
thing adapted to prepare me for a luxurious, in- 
tellectual, and social repast. 

" When we had travelled nearly our distance, 
we turned ofl" from the main road, and almost 
immediately saw Miss More's dwelling before 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 181 

US. It was a beautiful thatched cottage, situated 
on rising ground, with a fine garden in the rear, 
and every thing about it to indicate the most ex- 
quisite taste, and the most minute and patient 
labour. As I entered the room where she was 
sitting, she rose and met me with an air of 
great cordiality ; and, like her illustrious friend 
whom I had seen the week before, instantly 
put me as much at my ease as if I had known 
her during my whole life. 

" My introductory note from Mr. Wilberforce 
led her immediately to inquire for him, and 
then she dwelt for some time /ith the deepest 
interest on his exalted character, especially as 
a Christian ; on the pertinence, and fervour, 
and pathos of his prayers in her family ; and 
on the value of his friendship, which, she said, 
she had known during much the greater part of 
her life. 

" She alluded, in a very touching manner, to 
the fact that she was standing almost alone in 
the midst of a new generation ; that nearly all 
her early, and many of her later friends, had 
gone before her to their long home ; and while 
she mentioned the names of many of them with 
deep emotion, she seemed to dwell with espe- 
cial delight upon the memory of Bishop Porteus : 
indeed she had testified her veneration for him 
by erecting a monument to his memory in her 
jiarden, which she requested me particularly to 
observe as I passed over her grounds. 

" Of the Princess Charlotte she spoke in no 
measured terms of commendation. She re- 



182 MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 

garded her quite as a model in the station she 
occupied, and expressed a strong hope that she 
died a true Christian. She remarked, as a pe- 
culiarity in her experience, that she had never 
been able to quote from her own writings ; that 
she could not even distinguish her own style on 
hearing it read ; and that one of her young 
friends had sometimes amused herself by read- 
ing to her extracts from her own works, and 
getting her opinion of them, while she supposed 
she was passing judgment upon another author. 

" In presenting to me her work on ' The 
Spirit of Prayer,' she expressed the deepest 
sense of the importance of the subject, and re- 
marked that the work was chiefly a compilation 
from her other works, and made at a time when 
she supposed herself on the threshold of eter- 
nity, and that its circulation had altogether ex- 
ceeded her highest expectations. She dwelt 
with great interest on the happy state of our 
country, and especially on its religious privi- 
leges and prospects ; though I thought she dis- 
covered some lack of confidence in the dura- 
bility of our institutions. 

" She made many kind inquiries in respect 
to different individuals whom she had known 
either personally or by correspondence, in this 
country, and particularly concerning her ' little 
deaf and dumb friend,' (Miss Alice Cogswell, 
of Hartford, whose lamented death has occurred 
since that time,) who, she said, had written her 
the wittiest letters she ever received. She 
showed me the beautiful and variegated prospect 



MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 183 

which she had from her different windows, and 
then sent a servant to conduct me over her 
grounds, requesting me to notice particular 
objects, which, by reason of their associations, 
were specially interesting to her. 

" There is one portrait of her, I believe the 
last that was taken, that brings her before me 
nearly as she was at the time I saw her. Her 
person was marked by the most beautiful sym- 
metry; her countenance beamed with anima- 
tion and benevolence ; and her manners united 
the dignity of the court with the simplicity of 
childhood. When I left her she gave me a 
most gratifying assurance of her friendly re- 
gard, and subsequently honored me with several 
invaluable communications." 

After some other observations on the charac- 
ter and conduct of Miss More and Mr. Wilber- 
force, the doctor proceeds : — "How inconceiv- 
ably glorious must be the heavenly world ! It 
was a privilege to come in contact with such 
exalted minds on earth ; but how much greater 
the privilege to mingle with them, now that the 
last vestige of imperfection is removed, and 
they operate with an unwearied and immortal 
energy ! And there are minds there greater 
and nobler than even these : there are higher 
orders of being there who yet count it no con- 
descension to become the associates of ran- 
somed men. And can I hope, then, ever to be 
joined to the glorified society of the world 
above ! to be united to the great and good who 
were natives of this earth, and the greater and 



l84 MEMOIR OF HANiVAH MORE. 

the holier who are natives of heaven, in cele- 
brating the praise and doing the will of the All- 
merciful and the All-glorious ! May I aspire 
even to wear an immortal wreath, and occupy 
a heavenly throne, both purchased by redeem- 
ing blood! Then let me live and labour for 
heaven ! Let earthly objects fade from my 
view, and heavenly objects brighten on my 
vision ! Let me be anything, let me suffer any- 
thing, let me even die a martyr's death — only 
let my spirit at last be a glorified spirit, and my 
associates for eternity the ransomed of the 
Lord !" 



FINIS. 



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